State Department

Georgia Law hosts delegation from North Africa and the Middle East through State Department-sponsored International Visitor Leadership Program

Last month, the University of Georgia School of Law hosted a delegation of lawyers and judges from North African and Middle Eastern countries through the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP). The half-day visit to Athens was part of a three-week regional project entitled “The U.S. Judicial System.” Thirteen individuals representing eight countries participated and learned about principles of the U.S. judicial and legal systems while deepening their understanding of federal and state judicial systems during their time in the U.S.

While at Georgia Law, the delegation met first with Lynne Moore Nelson, Executive Director of the Institute of Continuing Judicial Education (“ICJE”). Nelson described the role of the ICJE, its partnership model, and how it serves the state’s judicial branch. She provided examples of their training components for judges and court personnel, the goals of their work, and different opportunities for growth.

Professor Thomas “TJ” Striepe, Director of the Law Library, and Professor Brandy Ellis, Research Services Librarian, presented afterwards on practical applications of generative Artificial Intelligence (“genAI”) in U.S. legal education and in the legal system. They gave an overview of the law school’s approach to genAI instruction and use, as well as examples of how genAI has been used in courts and law firms in the U.S. recently. They concluded with a discussion of professional responsibility as it pertains to genAI usage in both law school and in the larger legal system.

Director of Georgia Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center, Sarah Quinn, and Center Associate Director, Taher Benany, co-facilitated a synthesis discussion for the delegation, providing participants to reflect on transferrable judicial practices they observed, how they could build trust in their courts and legal communities, and other ways to implement lessons learned during their experience in the U.S. in their home countries.

Launched in 1940, the IVLP deepens ties between the United States and other nations through carefully designed professional visits to the United States based on U.S. foreign policy goals for current and emerging foreign leaders. Each year, approximately 4,000 IVLP participants from around the world are selected by U.S. embassies to engage professional counterparts across the United States. Through these encounters, they develop a deeper understanding of the political, economic, and cultural influences within U.S. society. IVLP participants also gain a firsthand experience of the United States, its people, and its culture. Current and emerging leaders represent government, politics, the media, education, nongovernmental organizations, the arts, public health, international security, business and trade, and other fields. Over 500 current and former heads of government and state, 1,600 cabinet officials, 1,000 Members of Parliament, 12 Nobel Laureates, and many other distinguished world leaders in the public and private sectors have participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program.

Special thanks to Hannah Kim, Program Coordinator – Georgia Council for International Visitors (GCIV), and Lindsay Weinmann, Administrative Specialist to the Dean Rusk International Law Center, for their logistical support of this visit.

Georgia Law Professor Clare Norins presents to U.S. State Department leadership program

Clinical Associate Professor & First Amendment Clinic Director Clare R. Norins presented on Georgia’s Open Meetings Act and Open Records Act to journalists from 17 countries participating in the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program during June.

The International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) is the U.S. Department of State’s premier professional exchange program. Through short-term visits to the United States, current and emerging foreign leaders in a variety of fields experience this country firsthand and cultivate lasting relationships with their American counterparts.

Clare R. Norins is a clinical associate professor and the inaugural director of the University of Georgia School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic, which represents clients in federal and state court on a range of First Amendment and media law issues. Representative matters include challenges to jail censorship, social media blocking by government officials, retaliatory arrest, defending the right to record, opposing unconstitutional permit requirements, and defamation defense/anti-SLAPP.

Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann gives talks on “Femmes d’exception au procès de Nuremberg” during journey to Lyon, France

Georgia Law’s Diane Marie Amann is back from France, where last week she presented, at three venues, her ongoing research regarding women who worked at first post-World War II international criminal trial in Nuremberg, Germany.

Her journey, which occurred at the invitation of and with support from the U.S. State Department’s Consulate General in Lyon, coincided with the 75th anniversary of the International Military Tribunal : on September 30-October 1, 1946, the yearlong IMT trial ended with the reading of a verdict that convicted most of the twenty-one Nazis on trial; some of them also were sentenced to die by hanging.

The talks by Amann, who is Regents’ Professor of International Law, Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center here at the University of Georgia School of Law, were as follows:

► At the Hôtel de Ville de Lyon, or Lyon City Hall, at a Thursday luncheon honoring the anniversary, she summarized her research (pictured above at upper right). It focuses on 6 women who worked at the IMT as lawyers or in other professional capacities, including analyst, translator, and interpreter. The group includes at least one woman from each of the Allied nations – from France, Great Britain, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the United States – that conducted the trial.

► At the Faculté de Droit Julie-Victoire Daubié, Université Lumière Lyon 2, she presented “Les femmes et le droit : l’exemple des procès internationaux de Nuremberg” (“Women and Law: The Example of the Nuremberg International Trials”) to a hundred or so law students (above at lower right), as part of the law faculty’s year-long celebration, including a “Pionnières : Les femmes et le droit” (“Pioneers: Women and Law”) lecture series, of its namesake Daubié, who, 160 years ago, was the first woman to earn a bachelor’s degree in law there. Amann’s talk linked the experiences of Nuremberg women to those of women and persons belonging to other underrepresented groups in the field of international law today.

► At Maison d’Izieu, the site of a onetime children’s home in a village located near the Alps, about 65 miles east of Lyon, Amann presented “Le rôle des avocates et autres femmes d’exception au procès de Nuremberg” (“The Role of Lawyers and Other Women of Exception at the Nuremberg Trial”) (above at left). Her talk formed part of a daylong conference entitled “Actualité du procès de Nuremberg, 75 ans après” (“News about the Nuremberg Trial 75 Years Later”). Her talk focused on the only woman lawyer in the French delegation, Docteur-Maître-Juge Aline Chalufour (video here, at 2:14:40). Other speakers, among them Stéphanie Boissard, Matthias Gemählich, Jean-Paul Jean, Xavier-Jean Keita, Michel Massé, Guillaume Mouralis, and Philippe Sands, discussed other members of the French delegation, the trial as a whole, and its impact on contemporary trials at the International Criminal Court and other forums.

Distinguished alumna Ertharin Cousin joins our Center Council

We are deeply honored to announce that one of our distinguished international law alumnae, Ertharin Cousin, has become a member of our Dean Rusk International Law Center Council.

Cousin has just completed a five-year term as Executive Director of the United Nations’ World Food Programme. In that role, she led the world’s largest humanitarian organization. Founded in 1961, WFP has more than 11,000 staffers, who combat hunger and food insecurity on behalf of more than 80 million persons in 82 countries. (credit for photo above)

She earned her J.D. degree from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1982. While here, she took international law classes with our Center’s namesake, Dean Rusk, who was a Georgia Law professor for many years after serving in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations as the United States’ second-longest-serving Secretary of State. Cousin also holds a B.A. degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and was one of the first women to graduate from Lane Tech, a prestigious and traditionally male-only public high school in the same city.

She returned to Georgia Law’s Athens campus last month to receive our alum association’s Distinguished Service Scroll Award. While here, she discussed her work at WFP and her ongoing commitment to end hunger to a group of students now enrolled in international law classes. Cousin stressed that even as direct food aid was provided in the short term, over the long term communities must be given opportunities to provided for themselves, remarking:

“I never met a mother in all the places I’ve visited who wanted to stand in line to feed her children.”

Anticipating her departure from WFP, which took place on April 4, Cousin told students that she planned to continue strategizing to bring an end to hunger as a Visiting Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute. She said:

“I’m just changing chairs.”

Immediately before taking up the post at WFP, Cousin served in Rome, by appointment of President Barack Obama, as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, and as head of the U.S. Mission to the U.N. Agencies in Rome. Her career also included many private- and public-sector posts. During the centennial Olympic Games, held in 1996 in Atlanta, she served as Senior Advisor to Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

In becoming a member of the Dean Rusk International Law Center Council, Cousin joins other Georgia Law graduates, faculty members, and friends who advise and support the work of the Center.

Center’s Laura Kagel to meet with prospective LLMs in Austria, Croatia

llmLaw students in Austria, Croatia, and nearby regions will soon have the opportunity for talk with a Dean Rusk International Law Center staffer about pursuing a degree at here at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Early next month yours truly, Laura Tate Kagel, the Center’s Director of International Professional Education, will take part in LL.M. fairs in Vienna, Austria, and Zagreb, Croatia. Sponsor of the fairs is EducationUSA, an arm of the U.S. Department of State.

I’ll be on hand personally to discuss the career benefits and special advantages of earning the Master of Law, or LL.M., degree at Georgia Law. (See prior posts about our current LL.M. students, as well as our hundreds of LL.M. alums, here.)

You can contact me directly at lkagel@uga.edu, and you can register for the fairs via the links below:

Wedne1sday, November 9, Vienna: 16:00 – 18:00, Amerika Haus, Friedrich-Schmidt-Platz 2, 1010 Vienna. Registration: http://www.fulbright.at/llm/.

Thursday, November 10, Zagreb: 18:00-20:00 at the Sheraton Hotel, Ul. kneza Borne 2, 10000 Zagreb. Registration: https://goo.gl/forms/sA9eCLQH1WKtzaVV2.

Hope to see you there!

President taps Georgia Law alum for Cultural Property Advisory Committee

President Barack Obama is appointing Georgia Law alumnus James K. Reap to the U.S. Department of State Cultural Property Advisory Committee, according to a White House announcement issued Friday.

reap_web-150x150Reap, a Professor in the University of Georgia College of Environment + Design and affiliated faculty member of the university’s African Studies Institute, is a globally renowned expert on issues of cultural property and the protection of cultural heritage amid armed conflict and similar threats. He coordinates the university’s Master’s degree in Historic Preservation, as well as the dual J.D./M.H.P. Reap frequently takes part in initiatives of our Dean Rusk International Law Center; indeed, he’ll serve as an expert at this week’s Georgia Law-International Committee of the Red Cross conference entitled “Humanity’s Common Heritage: The 2016 Commentary on the First Geneva Convention.”

The many professional activities of Reap, a former Fulbright Scholar, include leadership positions in the International Council of Monuments and Sites, as well as the Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation and the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield. He’s been active on preservation issues in Eastern and Southern Europe, Central Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and the Caribbean.

Dean Rusk and the dissent channel

March 18, 1967. Afternoon. Secretary of State Dean Rusk conducts a briefing on Vietnam for state governors in the Fish Room of the White House.

At the White House, with President Lyndon B. Johnson in attendance, US Secretary of State Dean Rusk briefs US governors on the US-Vietnam War. The briefing took place March 18, 1967, not long before Rusk set up a “dissent channel” for State Department diplomats frustrated by US foreign policy. (photo credit)

In my current role as leader of the 38-year-old Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law, I tend to take a close look at any reference to our Center’s namesake, Dean Rusk, who served as the only Secretary of State to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

And so it is with the US diplomatic topic du mois, the “dissent channel” at the Department of State.

This channel is much in the news these days, on account of a Page 1 New York Times story leaking a dissent-channel letter by 51 diplomats at State who want more use of force in Syria than President Barack Obama to date has authorized. (Worth-reading questions about the “leak” here.) And then there was yesterday’s Times story by Ellen Barry, about a dissent-channel “Blood Letter” that forestalled career advancement for the eponymous letter-writing diplomat.

Quite a surprise, amid all this, to read this explanation of the dissent channel, in a transcript of the June 17 Daily Press Briefing by a State Department spokesperson:

“This procedure, this vehicle has been in place since Secretary of State Dean Rusk was in office in 1971.”

Why a surprise? Because by 1971, Rusk was regaling Georgia Law students as the revered Sibley Professor of International Law.

At the briefing, an unnamed reporter took immediate issue with the spokesperson’s account:

QUESTION: And just – can we be clear about when it actually began? Because Rusk, I think, was gone by ’69 when the Nixon Administration came in. So I don’t think he was Secretary of State in 1971, but I could certainly be mistaken.

[ANSWER]: I think it was 1971 and —

QUESTION: Okay.

[ANSWER]: — my reading of the history said that Rusk had something to do with it. But I’m not going to quibble with you —

QUESTION: No, no.

[ANSWER]: — over the history of the program.

Uncharacteristic of these kind of transcripts, the spokesperson’s assertion is supported by a footnote [1]. It says only “William P. Rogers.” That’s the name of the man who became Secretary of State in 1969, after Rusk left government service for the last time. But a quick look at Rusk’s bio on the Department’s site would have confirmed the premise of the reporter’s question.

So what’s right, and wrong?

On the small point of timing, the spokesperson is wrong. But on the larger point of establishing a channel for dissent, unique among the world’s diplomatic services, the account is spot on. To quote a memorial published the year that Rusk died, in the Department’s own publication, Dispatch:

Dean Rusk left his mark not only on the nation and the world, but also on the Department of State as an institution. At a time of tremendous domestic social change, he encouraged minorities and women to enter the Foreign Service. He established the Dissent Channel and the Open Forum to give members of the Department alternative ways to make their foreign policy views known.

International law alive and well in Atlanta

Last week was a busy one for international law in Atlanta.

On Thursday evening, the Young Arbitrators Group for the Atlanta International Arbitration Society (AtlAS) and the International Chamber of Commerce Young Arbitrators Forum (ICC YAF) presented an excellent event on international law practice in Atlanta. As announced, it featured four attorneys serving as in-house counsel at major corporations, including:

  • Gary Bunce, Assistant General Counsel, Delta Airlines
  • Carolyn Dinberg, VP and Associate General Counsel, InterContinental Hotels Group
  • Eugenia Milinelli, Counsel, JAS Freight Forwarding
  • Nicole Levy, Executive Director and Senior Legal Counsel, AT&TKing and Spalding

Attended by many young members of AtlAS, ICC YAF, and the broader Atlanta legal community, the evening presented an interesting conversation about the use of international arbitration by large corporations, and provided insight into the career tracks of the panelists. The panelists offered advice to young attorneys, such as the importance of acquiring language skills, and the reception afterwards at the office of King & Spalding provided a valuable networking opportunity.

Then, on Friday morning, the World Affairs Council of Atlanta hosted a breakfast with Ambassador Charles Rivkin, who currently serves as the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs. Amb RivkinAmbassador Rivkin spoke about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) that was signed on February 4, 2016 in New Zealand, but has yet to be approved by Congress. Ambassador Rivkin stressed the ways the TPP would benefit Atlanta businesses, in particular those exporters of: transportation equipment; non-electrical machinery; computer and electronic products; chemicals; processed foods; electrical equipment, appliances and components; the agricultural sector generally. He further stressed that the the TPP is unique and good for U.S. businesses because it sets rules for state-owned enterprises, has a chapter dedicated to small and medium sized businesses, and addresses intellectual property and data flow, labor standards, and the environment. His remarks inspired a lively conversation with the audience, who represented a cross-section of the Atlanta business community.

Emerging security challenges require norm development, State lawyer says

IMG_5540At first blush, today’s security challenges may seem familiar. Yet they are new – emerging, in U.S. State Department parlance – because of the novel ways in which those challenges present themselves.

So explained Mallory Stewart (near right), Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Emerging Security Challenges & Defense Policy, during her fascinating talk Monday at Tillar House, the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the American Society of International Law. We at Georgia Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center were honored to join ASIL’s Nonproliferation, Arms Control & Disarmament Interest Group in cosponsoring Stewart’s talk, “Common Challenges to Diverse Security Threats.” (For the event video, see here.)

Stewart’s talk followed introductions by Kathleen A. Doty, Interest Group Co-Chair and our Center’s Associate Director for Global Practice Preparation, as well as opening remarks by yours truly (above, at right) respecting Dean Rusk’s arms control legacy.

Stewart pointed to technological change, in outer space and elsewhere, as one of the emerging challenges. Within this category was what is essentially garbage; that is, the debris left in outer space by state actors and, increasingly, nonstate/commercial actors, whose celestial flotsam and jetsam continue to orbit and present hazards to active satellites, space stations, and the like.

Another challenge is dual-use technology. Items as seemingly innocent as chlorine – a chemical essential to everyday cleaning – can become a security threat when deployed as a weapon, as is alleged to have happened during the ongoing conflict in Syria.

Yet another is ubiquity, the reality that technologies, such as cyber capabilities, are, literally, everywhere, and thus not easy to contain.

Containment – regulation – thus is difficult both to design and to effectuate. With regard to dual-use technologies, for instance, Stewart posed questions of intent: How, exactly, does one define and identify the moment that an innocent item is transformed into a weapon? What about attribution – in areas like cyberwarfare, how can the perpetrator be identified? How can attacks waged with such weapons be prohibited in advance?

Stewart gave due respect to the 20th C. arms control treaties that form the core portfolio of State’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification & Compliance, where she practices. Nevertheless, stressing global interdependence, she stressed the need for more nimble forms of international lawmaking. To be precise, she looked to mechanisms of soft law, such as codes of conduct, as ways that states and other essential actors might develop norms for responsible behavior in the short term. In the longer term, if the internalization and implementation of such norms should prove successful, eventually legally binding treaties may result.

(Part 2 of a 2-part series; Part 1 is here.)

At Center event in D.C., reviewing namesake Rusk’s arms control legacy

outerspaceVisitors to Tillar House, the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the American Society of International Law, were treated yesterday to a superb overview of emerging security challenges by the U.S. State Department lawyer who leads that portfolio, Mallory Stewart. I was proud both to have Georgia Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center cosponsor, and also to serve as discussant for this important event. This post and another tomorrow will outline the proceedings. (For the event video, see here.) Today’s post consists of my opening remarks, which aimed to to reacquaint the audience with to the role that our Center’s namesake, Dean Rusk, played in building the arms control framework within which Stewart and her colleagues work.

. . .

Everyone knows, of course, about Dean Rusk and Vietnam – of his role in championing a foreign conflict that claimed more than a million American and Vietnamese lives between 1965 and 1974. Everyone knows, too, of his pivotal role in averting nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when Rusk famously said,

“We are eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just blinked.”

What may be less well known – or been forgotten – is likewise significant. That is Rusk’s role in the design and implementation of the international arms control regime that has prevailed since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan seven decades ago. An Army officer who served in Asia and then in the War Department in D.C., Rusk, like many of his generation, did not fault the military decision. Yet in his memoir, As I Saw It, he wrote (p.122):

“[W]e made a mistake with the Manhattan Project from its inception. We should have built in a political task force to consider the ramifications of using the bomb.”

That position is consistent with Rusk’s own work, first as a State Department diplomat who championed the United Nations, NATO, and other multilateral postwar efforts, and ultimately as the head of that Cabinet department, for the entirety of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

As Secretary of State, Rusk oversaw the establishment of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, a forerunner of the Bureau for which our principal speaker, Mallory Stewart, now works. Moreover, Rusk was instrumental in the drafting, negotiation, conclusion, or implementation of at least seven major arms control treaties.

ltbtruskOne was the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, about which Rusk wrote (p. 259):

“[A]fter the Cuban missile crisis, it was important to demonstrate that the United States and Soviet Union could coexist. The test ban required careful and extensive negotiations, but we and they did sign a major agreement on the heels of the most horrendous crisis the world has seen. … Such is the legacy of what President Kennedy felt was his proudest achievement.”

The other treaties were the Antarctic Treaty, the Outer Space Treaty, the Treaty of Tlatelolco, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Seabed Arms Control Treaty, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Many of them remain at the core of the U.S. arms control portfolio to this day. Yet with the same modesty that pervades his memoir, Rusk wrote (p. 353):

“On the whole, our record on arms control under Lyndon Johnson was respectable.”

He did allow himself a light pat on the back (p.353):

“In reviewing the accomplishments of the Kennedy-Johnson years, I claim only one for myself: that with the agreements negotiated and our constant talking with the Soviets, my colleagues and I helped add eight years to the time since a nuclear weapon has been fired in anger.”

Rusk’s commitment to extending that time continued long after he left government, in 1969, and joined the faculty at the University of Georgia School of Law. Professor Rusk spoke often about arms control, with students, with the larger community, and with the stream of colleagues who consulted with him at his new home. Indeed, as late as 1985 – less than a decade before his death – Rusk welcomed to Athens, Georgia, former British Prime Minister Edward Heath, former Secretary of Defense McGeorge Bundy, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, and others for a televised discussion entitled “Forty Years Since Hiroshima: What Next for Mankind?”

Rusk’s 1990 memoir returned to that question. In the final chapter, entitled “Dean Rusk’s Message to the Young,” he wrote (p. 630):

“Your generation will discover in the decades ahead whether mankind can organize a durable peace in a world in which thousands of megatons are lying around in the hands of frail human beings. A world in which collective security – what my generation used to try to curb the obscenity of war – is withering away, and we are not even discussing what shall take its place.”

We are here today to put the lie to that last line – that is, to discuss those very issues of global security. I look forward to Ms. Stewart’s remarks.

(Tomorrow: Outline of Mallory Stewart’s remarks. Credit for photo at top, of Rusk signing the Outer Space Treaty; credit for photo above of Rusk, standing just to the left of the portrait as President Kennedy signs the Limited Test Ban Treaty)