The 2009 Stefan A. Riesenfeld Symposium
Beyond the Bush Era: International Human Rights Law Looking Forward
Date: Thursday, April 23 at 1:00 pm. Keynote begins at 5:00 pm.
Location: Room 110, Boalt Hall, University of California Berkeley School of Law.
Summary of Event
The 2009 Riesenfeld Symposium, co-sponsored for the first time by the Berkeley Journal of International Law and the Boalt Hall Committee for Human Rights, will examine the current status of human rights law, with a focus on how the framework of this legal system has been affected by the Bush Administration’s approach to international human rights law. The Symposium will bring together students, scholars, and legal practitioners in a discussion that aims to refine and expand our understanding of how human rights norms operate in both the domestic and international contexts.
Agenda
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1:00–1:20 |
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1:20–2:50 |
Looking Within: Domestic Advocacy Using International Human Rights Law |
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2:50–3:20 |
Coffee Break |
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3:20–4:50 |
Going Abroad: Where is the International Human Rights Law Regime Now? |
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5:00–6:00 |
Richard M. Buxbaum (Berkeley Law) [ bio ]
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6:00–7:00 |
Riesenfeld Reception: Honoring Professor Alston Donor Lobby, Boalt Hall |
Co-Sponsors
- Berkeley Law
- The Miller Institute for Global Challenges in the Law
- Human Rights Center
- American Constitution Society
- California Law Review
- Graduate Assembly
Registration
To register place contact BJIL Symposium Editor Karen Gal-Or (kgalor@gmail.com).
MCLE Credit: attorneys may receive 1 credit of “Continuing Legal Education” for attending the symposium.
Disability Access
This event is wheelchair accessible. For any disability-related accommodations contact Symposium Editor: Karen Gal-Or (kgalor@gmail.com).
Advance notice is requested.
Biographies
- Introductory Remarks: Laurel Fletcher is a Clinical Professor of Law and the Director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at U.C. Berkeley School of Law. Professor Fletcher works in the areas of transitional justice and humanitarian law, as well as globalization and migration. As director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic, she utilizes an interdisciplinary, problem-based approach to human rights research, advocacy, and policy. She has conducted empirical studies of the human rights impacts of Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 tsunami, forced labor in the United States, forced migration from the Dominican Republic, and the relationship between justice, accountability, and reconciliation in Bosnia. The Fulbright Commission invited Fletcher to lecture in Sri Lanka regarding her work on the provision of HIV treatment as a human rights obligation. Most recently, Professor Fletcher has worked on issues related to the release of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, resulting in the release of the report in November 2008, entitled, Guantanamo and its Aftermath (co-author Eric Stover, Human Rights Center.)
Panel #1: The Use of Human Rights Law in Domestic Courts
Roxanna Altholz is a Lecturer in Residence and the Associate Director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at U.C. Berkeley School of Law. Her work within the human rights field encompasses a wealth of experience in the Americas and Europe. She served as a legal advisor for the U.N. Mission in Kosovo (1999-2000) and as a staff attorney at the Center for Justice and International Law in Washington, D.C. (2000-2005). At CEJIL, Altholz represented hundreds of victims in human rights litigation in the Inter-American system. As legal counsel, she obtained several ground-breaking judgments from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights holding governments accountable for paramilitary activity in Colombia, state-sanctioned murder in Guatemala, torture and arbitrary detention in Ecuador, and discriminatory policies and practices in the Dominican Republic. As the Clinic's associate director, she has developed and directed advocacy initiatives to draft a code of conduct for companies in the information and communication sector, to address the impact of Hurricane Katrina on immigrant communities, to expose human rights violations suffered by immigrant communities in California's Central Valley, and to ensure government compliance with the Inter-American Court ruling on behalf of Dominican-born children of Haitian ancestry.
Martha Davis is a Professor of Law at Northeastern University School of Law and the Director of the school’s Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy. Her academic interests include specific areas of human rights law such as women’s rights, economic, social and cultural rights, and the roles of lawyers in promoting economic, social and cultural rights. Professor Davis was counsel in a number of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including Nguyen v. INS, a challenge to sex-based citizenship laws that Professor Davis argued before the Court. Professor Davis also chairs the Board of Directors of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative and serves on the editorial board of the Harvard School of Public Health’s publication Health and Human Rights. Some of her Professor Davis’ publications include International Human Rights from the Ground Up: The Potential for Subnational, Human Rights-Based Reproductive Health Advocacy in the United States, in Where Human Rights Begin: Essays on Health, Sexuality and Women, Ten Years After Vienna, Cairo and Beijing (Dr. Ellen Chesler and Dr. Wendy Chavkin, eds.), and The International Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Catalyst for Innovative Child Care Policy, published in the Human Rights Quarterly with Roslyn Powell.
Constance de la Vega is a Professor of Law and Academic Director of International Programs at the University Of San Francisco School Of Law. Professor de la Vega also serves on the advisory group for the Human Rights Institute at Columbia University. She is a founding member of Human Rights Advocates, and continues to serve on its board. Professor de la Vega has been involved in cases related to death penalty law, discrimination, and human rights in domestic and international law. Some of Professor de la Vega’s publications include Amici Curiae Urge The U.S. Supreme Court to Consider International Human Rights Law in Juvenile Death Penalty Case, 42 Santa Clara Law Review 1041, Can a United States Treaty Reservation Provide a Sanctuary for the Juvenile Death Penalty?, 32 University of San Francisco Law Review 735 (co-author Jennifer Brown); Protecting Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Tenth Annual International Law Symposium), 15 Whittier Law Review 471, and Using International Human Rights Law in Legal Services Cases, 22 Clearinghouse Review 1242. Prior to her academic work, Professor de la Vega was the Managing Attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Alameda County and a Staff Attorney at East Palo Alto Community Law Project.
Steven Watt
is a senior staff attorney with the Human Rights Program of the American Civil Liberties Union, specializing in litigation before federal courts and international tribunals. Mr. Watt is counsel in El Masri v. Tenet and Mohamed v. Jeppesen, challenges to the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program; Ali v. Rumsfeld, a suit challenging U.S. interrogation and detention practices in Afghanistan and Iraq; Sabbithi v. Kuwait, a case on behalf of three Indian women trafficked into the U.S. and enslaved by their diplomat employers; and Gonzales v. United States, a case before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights on behalf of a victim of domestic violence. Prior to joining the ACLU, Watt was a Human Rights Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where he focused on post-9/11 litigation, including Rasul v. Bush, a case involving the detention of Guantánamo Bay detainees; Arar v. Ashcroft, the first legal challenge to extraordinary rendition; and Turkmen v. Ashcroft, a case involving the detention of Arab, South Asian and Muslim men rounded up after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Originally from Scotland, Watt holds a law degree from the University of Aberdeen, a Diploma in Legal Practice from the University of Edinburgh, and an LL.M. in International Human Rights from the University of Notre Dame.
Panel #2: The Current State of International Human Rights Institutions
Oona A. Hathaway is a Professor of Law at U.C. Berkeley School of Law. Prior to coming to Berkeley, she was an associate professor of law at Yale Law School. She previously served as a law clerk for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and for D.C. Circuit Judge Patricia Wald, held fellowships at Harvard University's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and Center for the Ethics and the Professions, and served as an Associate Professor at Boston University School of Law. Her current research—for which she was awarded a Carnegie Scholars Award—focuses on the promise and limits of international law and on the intersection of U.S. constitutional law and international law. Professor Hathaway also serves as a member of the Advisory Committee on International Law for the Legal Adviser at the United States Department of State. She is currently working on a book entitled, Strong States, Strong World: Why International Law Succeeds and Fails and What We Should Do About It. She earned her B.A. summa cum laude at Harvard University and her J.D. at Yale Law School, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal.
John Bellinger served as Senior Advisor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from 2005 to 2009. Previously, he served as Senior Associate Counsel to President George W. Bush and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council at the White House from 2001 to 2005. As Legal Adviser, he provided legal advice to President Bush, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, NSC Principals, and NSC and White House staff on a broad range of national security and international legal matters. He was one of the principal drafters of the 2004 law that created the position of Director of National Intelligence. Bellinger received his A.B. cum laude in 1982 from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and his J.D. cum laude in 1986 from Harvard Law School. He also received an M.A. in Foreign Affairs in 1991 from the University of Virginia, where he was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Foreign Affairs Fellowship.
Elise Keppler is senior counsel with the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, which works to ensure accountability for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes through international, hybrid, and domestic courts. Ms. Keppler regularly engages in targeted advocacy with the US government and Congress to advance the program’s objectives. Ms. Keppler has been involved in several high-profile Human Rights Watch campaigns. These include successful efforts to see former Liberian president Charles Taylor surrendered for trial for alleged crimes committed in Sierra Leone, to secure a Security Council referral of crimes in Darfur to the International Criminal Court (ICC), and to defeat US-sponsored Security Council resolutions that gave immunity to UN personnel from states that are not part of the ICC treaty. Based on fact-finding in Sierra Leone in 2004 and 2005, Ms. Keppler produced two reports on the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. In 2007, she conducted multiple trips to Uganda and wrote a series of memoranda on benchmarks for justice for serious crimes committed in the nearly two-decade conflict in the north of the country. Most recently, she helped to develop a briefing paper on Human Rights Watch’s international justice priorities for the Obama Administration. Ms. Keppler has been with Human Rights Watch since the summer of 2003. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Elise Keppler worked as a litigation associate at Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP. Elise Keppler is a Berkeley Law alum.
- Dinah Shelton
is the Manatt/Ahn Professor of International Law at George Washington University School of Law, a position that she has held since 2004. Prior to her current position, she was professor of international law and director of the doctoral program in international human rights law at the University of Notre Dame Law School from 1996 to 2004. She previously taught at Santa Clara University and has been a visiting lecturer at universities in the U.S. and France. Professor Shelton is the author of prize-winning books and many articles on international law, human rights law, and international environmental law. In 2006, she was awarded the prestigious Elizabeth Haub Prize in Environmental Law. She has served as a legal consultant to the United Nations Environment Programme, UNITAR, World Health Organization, European Union, Council of Europe, and Organization of American States. A board member of many human rights and environmental organizations, Professor Shelton graduated from U.C. Berkeley School of Law.
Introduction of Keynote Speaker: Richard M. Buxbaum is a Professor of Law at Berkeley School of Law and a Jackson H. Ralston Professor of International Law. Professor Buxbaum founded and was the first chair of UC Berkeley's Center for German and European Studies and Center for Western European Studies. From 1993 to 1999, he was dean of international and area studies at UC Berkeley. Professor Buxbaum was one of the five defense counsel in the criminal proceedings against the 773 members of the Free Speech Movement from 1964 to 1967; represented various campus organizations and individuals in cases arising out of Vietnam War protests; and was defense counsel in a large number of criminal proceedings that accompanied the Third World Strike of 1969-70, which was a factor in the development of affirmative action programs for student admissions on the campus. He was the first director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute at Berkeley, serving from 1969 to 1974. His involvement with the National Housing Law Project goes back to its formation as a Backup Center for the Legal Services Corporation in 1969. Professor Buxbaum has also served on various state and national committees engaged in the drafting and review of corporate and securities legislation. He is contributing editor to a variety of U.S. and foreign professional journals and has been a visiting professor at the Universities of Michigan, Cologne, Frankfurt, Munster and Sydney. He holds honorary degrees from the Universities of Cologne, Osnabruck and Eotvos Lorand Budapest, and received the 1992-93 Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Award for Humanities and Arts. Professor Buxbaum is a member of the American Law Institute and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001.
Keynote Speaker: Professor Philip Alston is the John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law. A world-renowned scholar in international human rights law, Professor Alston has served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions since 2004 and undertook official missions to the Philippines, Brazil, Central African Republic, Afghanistan and the United States in 2007-2008. He was also a member of the Group of Experts on Darfur appointed in 2007 by the U.N. Human Rights Council, and has been Special Adviser to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Millennium Development Goals since 2002. He chaired the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights for eight years, until 1998. At the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights Professor Alston was elected to chair the first meeting of the Presidents and Chairs of all of international human rights courts and committees (including the European and American Human Rights Courts and the African Commission). He was UNICEF's legal adviser throughout the period of the drafting of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and directed a major project funded by the European Commission, which resulted in the publication of a Human Rights Agenda for the European Union for the Year 2000 and a volume of essays on that theme. Professor Alston is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and U.C. Berkeley School of Law.
