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GW Law School 2002 Commencement Celebrates Individual Achievement, Public Service | Professors Note | Law School Establishes F. Elwood and Eleanor Davis Professorship | Moot Court Success | Students Set Judicial Clerkships Record | Early Law Alumna Honored in Mississippi | Ashcroft, GW Law Celebrate Claims Court Anniversary | GW in History


International Update

Afghan Minister Discusses Reconstruction

Elliott School International Affairs Program Director Karl Inderfurth, Afghanistan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, and Dean Michael K. Young.

Claire Duggan

In a joint GW Law School/Elliott School of International Affairs event, the University hosted Afghanistan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah on Oct. 21. To a standing-room crowd in GW’s Jack Morton Auditorium, where CNN’s “Crossfire” is aired, Abdullah spoke about current events in Afghanistan and the reconstruction of his country.

The collaborative event is part of a joint effort by GW Law School and Elliott School of International Affairs faculty members to help rebuild Afghanistan’s infrastructure. Earlier, GW representatives met with Mahboba Hoquqmal, then dean of the Kabul University Law School faculty and current adviser to President Hamid Karzai for women’s affairs, and Ahmad Nader Nadery of the Office of Human Rights in Afghanistan, to find ways to assist Kabul University. As a result, a collection of law books was donated to Kabul University Law School and will soon be shipped to Afghanistan with the assistance of the U.S. Department of State (see following article).


GW Donates Law Books to Kabul

Last spring, when the former dean of the Kabul University Law School in Afghanistan visited GW Law, she described how her school had been destroyed during the years of deterioration of society there. And now, within just a few months since that meeting, Dean Michael K. Young has led GW Law into action to help the school rebuild, one book at a time. Mahboba Hoquqmal had mentioned that a donation of law books would be helpful, and by October of this year, a first shipment of books from GW Law was on its way to Kabul.

The effort was no small feat, given the special arrangements that needed to be made through the State Department in order to mail to Afghanistan. “We just delivered 15 boxes to the State Department this week, which they have agreed to deliver to the Kabul University Law School,” explains Scott Pagel, professor and director of the Jacob Burns Law Library. “The effort is also a great example of the Law School working with other University departments,” he says. “Professor Karl Inderfurth of the Elliott School was instrumental in dealing with the State Department.”

Pagel arranged for the first shipment to Kabul by first contacting Lexis Publishing to ask for a donation of books. Other donations came from GW Law faculty members. Contacting Lexis was a way to get the ball rolling on an initial shipment, he says.

“Now that we know the process of who to contact, how they are to be boxed, and other logistical requirements, we can contact more publishers.”

The first shipment included mostly secondary texts. “It was very important to us that they be contemporary, so we included lots of hornbooks and treatises, which are useful for basic discussion areas of the law. Lexis contributed our Guide to International Legal Research, issued by our own George Washington International Law Review. We included some case books as well.”

Another person who was extremely helpful in arranging for the shipment was Joseph Roushanfecker, a law library staff member, Pagel says. Roushanfecker is from Afghanistan and helped to draft its constitution when he was there in the 1960s. He also recently has been participating in efforts in Geneva to draft a new constitution for the country.

With the first shipment on its way, Pagel already is at work on a second shipment, which he hopes will contain some more secondary texts, and a copy of the U.S. Code. He hopes to send the second shipment by the end of the year.

Perspectives From Russia
Yuriy Sidorenko (center), justice of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation visited GW Law Oct. 10 to give a talk on the early years of post-Soviet Russia from a judicial perspective and current judicial reform in the Jacob Burns Moot Court room.

Paul Fucito

India, U.S. Justices Visit GW

U.S. Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Sandra Day O’Connor along with Dean Michael K. Young and faculty members welcomed members of the Indian Supreme Court, the Indian Solocitor General, and Indian Attorney General to GW on Oct. 14 for discussion on legal issues. Professors Paul Butler, Jeffrey Rosen, and Robert Cottrol gave presentations. Visiting Professor David Zlotnick presided over a second panel that included a speech by Dan Eddy of the National Association of Crime Victim Compensation Boards.


Training Program Established in Singapore

GW Law and The National University of Singapore have created a summer study program dedicated to international trade law. The program is believed to be the first of its kind in the world. It will be run jointly by GW and NUS and will be based in Singapore.

Called the “International Trade Law Academy,” it consists of a four-week, English-medium training program for law students and practicing attorneys from around the world. Applications will be available on both schools’ Web sites. Individuals who have completed one year of study at an accredited law school will be eligible to apply.

The academy will offer challenging courses on fundamental and cutting-edge trade topics, including GATT-WTO law, trade topics that relate to trade remedies, regional agreements, development, national security, intellectual property protection, investment, competition policy, the environment, labor standards, and human rights. Courses will be taught by leading world experts, and a certificate will be awarded upon completion of the program.

“Could we imagine a better time and place at which to establish the world’s first International Trade Law Academy, or better universities to establish it? Singapore is an extremely important partner to the United States on economic, political, and strategic issues,” says Dean Michael K. Young. “This academy joins the top two law schools on trade in their respective regions—NUS in Asia with GW in North America. Thus, I am delighted that, through the academy, GW and NUS will train the leading trade law and policy officials of the future, and be the premier forum for creative thinking about trade issues.”

The first summer academy is planned for June 2003. Its co-directors are GW’s Raj Bhala and Michael Ewing-Chow of NUS. For more information about the program, please contact them via e-mail at Rbhala@law.gwu.edu or lawmec@nus.edu.sg.

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