In this issue

• First page
• News and Programmatic Highlights
  • ASIL Sidebar
  • IJA Docket
  • Cases of Note
• Opinion and Commentary
  • Global Judicial Dialogue
  • General Principles of International Law
  • Leading Figures in International Law
  • Justice Sector Assessment
  • In Review: New Publications on International and Comparative Law
• Justice in Profile
• International Tribunal Spotlight
• Significant Judicial Developments
• International Resources
• Calendar of Events

ASIL Sidebar

Judicial Networks for Consultation and Cooperation

ASIL’s Judicial Outreach Program recently facilitated a transnational judicial dialogue involving more than two dozen judges from international tribunals and supreme and constitutional courts at a December 1-2, 2006 conference co-sponsored with Harvard Law School.

During the conference, which took place on the Harvard campus, participants considered questions related to the role and effectiveness of judicial networks in strengthening the administration of justice and offered prescriptions for improving their work in the following areas: ethics and the role of a judge in a democratic society, judicial education in an era of globalization, and efficiency and the enforcement of judgments.

The conference was co-chaired by retired US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and former Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa Richard Goldstone and featured keynote addresses by Panamanian Supreme Court Chief Justice Graciela Dixon and Justice Michael Kirby of the Australian High Court.

The American Society of International Law is actively engaged in providing professional development and networking opportunities to judges, and to the legal profession as a whole, as part of its efforts to promote greater awareness, understanding, and use of international law.

ASIL activities and programs in this regard include:

• A workshop organized by the International Law in Domestic Courts Interest Group that addressed the relationship between international law and the US legal system; the extraterritorial reach of the US Constitution; globalization and executive power; and  evolving criteria for domestic judicial reception of treaty interpretations by international courts.

• Recent webinars on the international law aspects of the nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea, and career paths in the field of international law.    

• The Helton Fellowship Program, which awards micro-grants in modest sums to law students and young professionals for the pursuit of fieldwork and research on significant issues of international law, human rights, humanitarian affairs, and other related issues.

• Several ASIL Insights on judicial related topics such as the recent decision of the European Court of First Instance on UN and EU terrorist suspect blacklists, the Iraqi High Tribunal’s decision in the Dujail trial, and a decision of a Texas Court in consular affairs case.  

Andrew Solomon, ASIL Director of Research and Outreach Programs

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