Human Rights Brief
A Legal Resource for the International Human Rights CommunityCenter Faculty / Staff News
Robert Goldman, Professor of Law, Co-Director of the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (the Center), and First Vice-President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR Commission), traveled to Paraguay in July 1998 to represent the Commission in a ceremony marking the return of ancestral lands to two indigenous communities. In August, he spent a week in Argentina on behalf of the Commission, meeting with government officials and private litigants. In addition, he lectured to students, judges, and lawyers at the law schools of the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán and the Universidad Nacional de la Plata in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In September, he delivered a speech on "The Inter-American Human Rights System" at a conference organized by the Group of 78, a private group of prominent Canadian citizens, held in Québec, Canada.
Claudio Grossman, Dean, Co-Director of the Center, and Member of the IACHR Commission, concluded an agreement between representatives of the Republic of Paraguay and an indigenous organization, Tierra Viva, for the transfer of title by state authorities to the communities of Lamenxay and Riachito in March 1998. This is the first peaceful settlement agreement in the Inter-American human rights system that restores legitimate rights to an indigenous community in the western hemisphere. In April, Dean Grossman coordinated a panel on the "Future of the Inter-American System for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights" at the meeting of the American Society of International Law (ASIL). The presentation will be published in the 1998 ASIL proceedings. Also in April, as Special Rapporteur on Women's Rights for the Commission, Dean Grossman presented the Report on the Status of Women in the Americas. The report, which the Commission approved, sets forth specific recommendations aimed at remedying instances of de facto and de jure discrimination against women. Dean Grossman appeared for the Commission in June before the Inter-American Court on Human Rights in the case of Bámaca Velásquez v. Guatemala. This case involves the highly publicized disappearance of Efraín Bámaca Velásquez, the husband of the American human rights activist Jennifer Harbury. In August, Dean Grossman participated in an on-site visit to Guatemala with the Commission. He also made the keynote presentation, entitled "The Future of Chapultepec in the Inter-American System," at the Chapultepec Conference on Freedom of Expression, sponsored by the Inter-American Press Association in San Jose, Costa Rica. He recently published "Palabras del Presidente de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos, Decano Claudio Grossman, en la Sesión Inaugural del 95avo Período Ordinario de Sesiones de la CIDH" in El Futuro del Sistema Interamericano de Protección de los Derechos Humanos.
Nicholas Kittrie, Professor of Law, was recently elected as Chair of the UN Alliance for Non-Governmental Organizations for Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. In addition, Dr. Kittrie served as a delegate at the International Conference for the Establishment of an International Court of Criminal Justice, which took place in Rome, Italy from June 15 to July 17, 1998. Conference participants drafted and gave final approval to a new international convention creating the first permanent international criminal court in history. Dr. Kittrie is currently in the process of completing a volume titled International Crimes and Punishments: A Documentary Sourcebook on International Criminal Law and Procedure, which is expected to be published in 1999.
Beth Lyon, Practitioner-in-Residence, joined the Washington College of Law (WCL) International Human Rights Law Clinic in July 1998. Before coming to WCL, she was a staff attorney for the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, where her focus was asylum law and refugee rights. In addition to asylum and refugee issues, her research interests include subsistence rights and human rights in the legislative process.
Claudia Martin, Co-Director of the Inter-American Human Rights Digest Project, was a member of the research team that published Repertorio de Jurisprudencia del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos: La Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos 1980-1997. On September 25, 1998, she participated in the African Human Rights Camp 1998, celebrated in Morocco. At the camp, she lectured on the "Inter-American System for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights."
Diane Orentlicher, Professor of Law, Co-Director of the Center, is currently completing a casebook on human rights, which she is co-authoring with Louis Henkin, David Leebron, and Gerald Neuman. On June 3, 1998, Professor Orentlicher chaired a meeting convened by former president Jimmy Carter at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The meeting brought together senior officials of the Clinton administration and leaders of human rights organizations to explore key issues concerning the U.S. position at the Diplomatic Conference in Rome on the establishment of a permanent international criminal court. She also participated in the Diplomatic Conference itself, which took place from June 15 to July 17, 1998. After the conference, she participated in a meeting organized by the American Academy for Arts and Sciences, which brought together U.S. administration officials and several experts on international criminal tribunals to consider issues raised by U.S. opposition to the statute adopted in Rome.
Diego Rodríguez-Pinzón, Co-Director of the Inter-American Human Rights Digest Project, was a member of the research team that published Repertorio de Jurisprudencia del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos: La Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos 1980-1997. In addition, he recently published an article titled "Presumption of Veracity, Nonappearance, and Default in the Individual Complaint Procedure of the Inter-American System on Human Rights" in Revista del Instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos, an international human rights law review.
Oscar Schiappa-Pietra, Adjunct-Professor of Law and Coordinator of the Third Annual Inter-American Human Rights Moot Court, participated throughout 1997 and 1998 in a University of Maryland program that promotes friendly relations between Peru and Ecuador by bringing together citizens of the two countries. He also spoke about "The Economy That We Need" at the Asamblea Nacional de Rectores in Cusco, Peru, in August 1998. In addition, in 1998, he published two articles that appear on the internet, entitled "The Conspiracy of Revenge: U.S. Death Penalty Policies as Breaches of International Law" and "The Revolution of Dignity."
Herman Schwartz, Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center, was appointed Adviser-Member to the Armenian Commission on the Constitution in June 1998. During June, he provided advice and submitted memoranda on proposed constitutional amendments for the Republic of Armenia. This followed his consultation with the Armenian Constitutional Court and Armenian legislators on constitutional and legislative issues from May 22-27, 1998. Additionally, in July, Professor Schwartz was appointed Representative of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as to the Council of Europe's Commission on Democracy. He participated in a lecture series on judicial review held July 6-10, 1998, at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Professor Schwartz organized the Second Biennial Symposium "Constitutional 'Refolution' in the Ex-Communist World: The Rule of Law," held at WCL on September 28, 1998.
Rick Wilson, Professor of Law, Co-Director of the Center, and Director of WCL's International Human Rights Law Clinic, appeared as counsel in three cases at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San Jose, Costa Rica in June 1998. The first case, Iván Suárez v. Ecuador, involved a former airline security guard held for nearly four years in preventive detention while awaiting trial. The case was one of the first under new Court rules that allow the victim's counsel to appear and argue separately during the reparations phase. In the second case, Consuelo Benavídez v. Ecuador, involving the disappearance of a teacher, Professor Wilson acted as special assistant to the Commission. The case resulted in the largest settlement in the Court's history. Finally, on behalf of the Amnesty International Secretariat, he argued orally as amicus curiae in Advisory Opinion 16, which was requested by the Republic of Mexico. Mexico sought to clarify the human rights obligations for notification under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations for foreign nationals awaiting the death penalty in the United States. The U.S. government appeared for the first time in the Court's history in response to the proceedings. Also in June, Professor Wilson lectured on the international human rights aspects of criminal procedure, due process, and the right to a fair trial as a visiting professor of law in the newly created Masters of Law program at the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Peru. In addition, during the summer, he became an Advisory Board member for the Derechos/Human Rights website, one of the largest and most active sites concerning human rights in the Americas.
The proper citation for this article in the Human Rights Brief Volume 6, Issue 1, beginning at page 22 is: 6 No. 1 Hum. Rts. Brief 22 (1998).
