IntLawGrrls |
| Posted: 14 Oct 2010 01:48 PM PDT  We note with sadness the passing of Louis Henkin (right), who died this morning at age 92.Lou, as some of us were honored to call him, may not have been much taller than I, but he was a true giant in our field -- in international law, particularly as it interrelates with the constitutional law of the United States. I first met Lou soon after I began teaching at the University of California, Davis, School of Law; I was privileged to serve as a moderator when our Journal of International Law & Policy held a symposium to mark the 2d edition of Foreign Affairs and the Constitution (1997), one of Lou's many landmark books. His kindness and erudition were evident, as was the high regard of the assembled conference participants. A year or two later, during an annual meeting of the American Society of International Law -- for which he served as President from 1994 to 1996 -- I was standing at a D.C. streetcorner, patiently waiting for the traffic signal to change. "You're obviously not from New York," came a voice from behind, and soon Lou, by then in his 80s, strode past me and safely crossed the empty road without regard for the red light. Lou, he was a New Yorker. Though born on Nov. 11, 1917, in what is now Belarus, he was resident in New York's Lower East Side by his 7th birthday, his family having fled anti-Jewish agitation in their homeland. Following undergraduate studies at New York's Yeshiva University and law studies at Harvard, he clerked first for 2d Circuit Judge Learned Hand, then for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. He served in the Army during World War II, then worked at the U.S. Department of State, eventually arriving at Columbia Law School in 1956. There he undertook a truly stellar career in international law, marked by, among many other things, his service as Reporter of the Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States (1987). Many more career details may be found in this obituary at Columbia's website. A last memory: On one of the too-few opportunities I had to talk with Lou, we discussed a then-forthcoming casebook for which he was the 1st-listed author. He noted with pride that he had succeeded in naming the book, simply, Human Rights. No "international" to modify -- perhaps, implicitly to undercut -- what he saw as the chosen words' fundamental, universal essence.  |
| Posted: 14 Oct 2010 03:20 AM PDT  Indépendance cha-cha is the lively name Le Monde has given to the history of French decolonization featured in this multimedia presentation.With the run of the cursor you can stream through time, clicking to stop when the spirit moves. Examples: ► Listen to the rallying song Débout les Zouaves while reading about World War I (1914-1918), during which French forces included more than 200,000 persons from colonies in sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar -- more than 25,000 of whom died in the conflict. ► The Colonial Exposition -- and the Counter-Exposition mounted by André Breton and other surrealists -- both held in Paris in 1931. ► Publication of Peau noire, masques blancs (1952) by the Martinique-born psychiatrist and anticolonial theorist Frantz Fanon (depicted not only in a photograph but also via audio of a lecture he gave). ► The securing, in rapid succession in 1960 and 1961, of independence by many former French colonies in Africa; followed by occasional French interventions ever since.  ► 2007 accusations of corruption by leaders in certain African countries, about which IntLawGrrls posted. ► Video of a 2007 speech in Senegal by President Nicolas Sarkozy -- that that left "Africans ... seething."Worth your time to give cha-cha a spin.  |
| Posted: 14 Oct 2010 02:00 AM PDT  (Read On! ... occasional posts on writing worth reading) The International Criminal Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law (of which I am pleased to serve as Co-Chair along with Linda Malone (right), has just issued its most recent issue of "Accountability," the Group's newsletter. The newsletter includes articles by our own Valerie Oosterveld. Here is editor Margaret Zimmerman's (below right) introduction to the volume:
Check it out!  |
| Posted: 14 Oct 2010 12:44 AM PDT  On this day in ...... 1916, Rutgers University benched all-American athlete Paul Robeson (left), because the Washington and Lee football team it faced refused to take the field against a squad that included an African-American player. (photo credit) Robeson went on to Fame, and not only in the College Hall of that name. He would graduate from Columbia Law School and study languages at the University of London; become a "superbly talented" actor and singer; and engaged in political activism on issues such as the Spanish Civil War, workers' rights, the Vietnam War, and racial discrimination. He was called to testify before anti-Communist inquiries in state and federal legislatures, and for years during the 1950s was denied a passport to travel on account of his views. Robeson died in 1976 at age 77. (Prior October 14 posts are here, here, and here.)  |
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