Center Faculty/Staff News
John Cerone, executive director of the War Crimes Research Office at American University’s Washington College of Law (WCL) was recently appointed to the adjunct faculty at WCL. In the spring, he will teach a course entitled, “Non-State Actors and Natural Persons in Human Rights, Humanitarian, and International Criminal Law.” In September 2002, Professor Cerone appeared as a guest lecturer at Columbia University, where he discussed post-Nuremberg developments in international criminal law. In October 2002, he presented “The Interplay of the Doctrines of Command Responsibility and Joint Criminal Enterprise in the Milosevic Case,” at International Law Weekend 2002, sponsored by the American Branch of the International Law Association and the American Society of International Law (ASIL). Also in October, Professor Cerone delivered a lecture at Fordham Law School regarding the impact of globalization in shaping the role of international criminal law in post-conflict societies.
Robert K. Goldman, professor of law and co-director of the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, co-authored a paper with Brian Tittemore, a WCL LL.M. graduate, entitled, “Unprivileged Combatants and the Hostilities in Afghanistan: Their Status and Rights under International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law,” which was published by the American Society of Internal Law (ASIL) in December and posted on the ASIL Web site. In February, Professor Goldman will participate in the three-week ordinary session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). In March, he will litigate Bulacio v. Argentina before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on behalf of the IACHR.
Claudio Grossman, dean, co-director of the Center, and former president of the IACHR, was recently elected to the Executive Committee of the Human Rights Section of the Association of American Law Schools. Dean Grossman currently serves as official observer for the IACHR of the AMIA trial in Argentina involving the bombing of a Jewish community center. His remarks given at the Meeting of Experts on Trafficking of Women and Children for Sexual Exploitation in the Americas, held on April 11, 2000, were recently published in In Modern Bondage: Sex Trafficking in the Americas, a publication of the International Human Rights Law Institute of DePaul University College of Law. In October, Dean Grossman was quoted in an article published by the United States Alumni Society regarding Jimmy Carter’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize. Also in October, he lectured at the 30th Session of the External Programme of the Hague Academy of International Law in Mexico, and was interviewed by the Miami Herald regarding Dominican President Hipólito Mejía’s offer of political asylum to former Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Alemán. Dean Grossman also was a roundtable panelist at the15th Annual Judicial Conference for the United States Court of Federal Claims regarding “Suing the Sovereign” in Latin America, with remarks to be published in the George Washington Journal of International Law. In November, Dean Grossman was interviewed by CNN en Español on the topic of terrorism. In December, he presented the keynote address at a celebration marking the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. He also was interviewed by Voice of America regarding the U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement and by VOA Talk to America on the comparative status of human rights around the world. In January, Dean Grossman moderated and organized a plenary panel entitled, “The Impact of Globalization on Human Rights,” at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, with panelists Dean Tom Farer of the University of Denver, Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter of Princeton University, Judge Patricia Wald, and Aryeh Neier.
Hadar Harris, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at WCL, recently spoke on a WCL panel regarding human rights in Chechnya, along with the first secretary of the Russian Embassy and a representative of the U.S. Department of State. In November, Ms. Harris was the keynote speaker at a luncheon at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace entitled, “Assessing Women’s Rights through a CEDAW Lens.” The presentation examined the use of an assessment tool developed by the American Bar Association Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA/CEELI), which Ms. Harris piloted in Armenia last spring. In December, Ms. Harris spoke at a two-day conference in Yerevan, Armenia entitled, “Promoting Democracy through Equality and the Rule of Law: Developing a Government and NGO Partnership to Improve the Status of Women,” sponsored by ABA/CEELI. Ms. Harris also spoke on “Adhering to International Standards for the Treatment of Prisoners: Strategies for Change,” at a conference on prison reform held in Casablanca, Morocco. The conference was sponsored by L’Observatoire Marocain des Prisons and was attended by government representatives, journalists, NGOs, and human rights activists from throughout the country.
Claudia Martin, visiting associate professor and co-director of the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, coordinated a seminar on international mechanisms to confront human rights violations for human rights law professors, human rights activists, representatives from state human rights commissions, and other members of the legal profession. The Human Rights Program of the Universidad Iberoamericana helped organize the seminar, which took place in December 2002. The seminar was organized as part of a project entitled “Human Rights Legal Education Partnership-Mexico,” and was carried out with the financial support of the National Endowment of Democracy. During this event, Professor Martin lectured on new developments in the case law of the inter-American human rights system with respect to the right to life. In addition, Professor Martin presented a diagnostic report on the current status of human rights legal education in Mexico, published as part of the project.
Diane Orentlicher, professor of law and co-director of the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, presented “The Uses of and Limits upon Universal Jurisdiction” at an October conference on “Paradigms of International Justice” at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, Missouri. In October, Professor Orentlicher participated in a panel discussion entitled, “Global Lawyers Here and around the World” at Columbia Law School. In November and December 2002, Professor Orentlicher participated in the first two sessions of a new roundtable, “Old Rules, New Threats,” convened by the Council on Foreign Relations/American Society of International Law. Professor Orentlicher is a core member of this roundtable series. In December, she presented a paper on “Terrorism and Crimes against Humanity” at a conference on “Democracy versus Terrorism” at the University of Haifa, in Haifa, Israel. Professor Orentlicher provided media commentary on issues including the UN Security Council and Iraq, the International Criminal Court, United States interrogation practices in Afghanistan, and the testimony of journalists before international criminal tribunals.
Diego Rodríguez-Pinzón is currently a visiting associate professor, co-director of the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, and director of the Human Rights Legal Education-Partnership Projects in Ecuador and Colombia. Professor Rodríguez-Pinzón was invited by the Swedish NGO Foundation for Human Rights to attend a seminar on impunity in Colombia. The seminar took place in Stockholm, Sweden in October 2002, with participants from Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. A draft report of the delegation that visited Colombia earlier that month was the main document for the discussions. The recommendations of a previous seminar were further elaborated on in order to find solutions to impunity in cases of human rights violations in Colombia and other countries. In December, Professor Rodríguez-Pinzón traveled to Mexico City to participate in the seminar “International Mechanisms to Confront Human Rights Violations.” He lectured on the “Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights” at a seminar organized by the Universidad Iberoamericana of Mexico, the Comisión de Derechos Humanos del Distrito Federal, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, the International Center for Transitional Justice, and the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy. The event was part of an ongoing project of the Academy and several Mexican universities focusing on human rights legal education in that country. Additionally, Professor Rodríguez-Pinzón served as consultant to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in November.
Herman Schwartz, professor of law and co-director of the Center, is co-chair of the August 2003 Salzburg Seminar Session on Human Rights: The Economic and Social Dimension. Professor Schwartz recently submitted an analysis of the Constitution of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, and an analysis of proposed amendments to the constitution for the National Democratic Institute, in September and December 2002, respectively. In October, he presented a lecture on socio-economic rights to legal staff of the World Bank in Washington, D.C. In November, Professor Schwartz presented a lecture in Istanbul on free speech to the Turkish Ministry of Justice and law professors on behalf of the U.S. Department of State. Also in November, Professor Schwartz spoke on a WCL panel entitled, “The Rehnquist Court.” In January 2003, Professor Schwartz was a panelist on “How Big Is the Constitutional Universe: Discrete National or Global Order,” at the American Association of Law Schools Convention. He recently edited and contributed to The Rehnquist Court: Activism on the Right, published in December 2002.
Richard Wilson, professor of law, co-director of the Center, director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic, and director of the WCL Clinical Program, conducted an evaluation of three law school clinical programs sponsored by the Open Society Fund of Lithuania in September 2002. The report examines two clinics in the capital, Vilnius, and one in the nearby city of Kaunas. In October, Professor Wilson traveled to China to discuss potential training programs for criminal defense lawyers through the Beijing Bar Association. In December, he attended a meeting on Access to Justice in the ten countries that will soon be admitted to the European Union with a primary focus on legal aid in criminal matters.
The proper citation for this article in the Human Rights Brief Volume 10, Issue 2, beginning at page 43 is: 10 No. 2 Hum. Rts. Brief 43 (2003).
