Highlights at the 2010 Annual Meeting
Keynote Lecture by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada
The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin was appointed Chief Justice of Canada on January 7, 2000. She had been appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1989. Prior to that, she was Chief Justice of the British Columbia Supreme Court from 1988 to 1989, a judge of the British Columbia Court of Appeal from 1985 to 1988, a judge of the British Columbia Supreme Court from 1981 to 1985, and a judge of the Vancouver County Court from April 1981 to September 1981.
Chief Justice McLachlin received a B.A. (Hon.) (1965), M.A. (1968) and LL.B. (1968), all from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. She was called to the Alberta Bar in 1969 and the British Columbia Bar in 1971. She practised law in Edmonton, Fort St. John and Vancouver from 1969 to 1974, and taught in the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Law from 1974 to 1981.
Chief Justice McLachlin chairs the Canadian Judicial Council, the Advisory Council of the Order of Canada and the Board of Governors of the National Judicial Institute.
Chief Justice McLachlin has authored many publications and is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees. She was named commander of the French Legion of Honour in 2007 and was presented with the International Jurists Award in 2008.
Keynote Lecture by Legal Adviser to the U.S. Department of State Harold Hongju Koh
Harold Hongju Koh is the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, the 22d to serve in that position. He is one of the country's leading experts on public and private international law, national security law, and human rights. He is on leave from Yale Law School, where he is the Martin R. Flug '55 Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. From 2004 to 2009, Koh served as the 15th Dean of Yale Law School. From 1993 to 2009, he was also the Gerard C. & Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. From 1998 to 2001, Koh served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. He previously served on the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Public International Law. A Marshall Scholar, Koh graduated from Harvard, Oxford, and Harvard Law School, and has received eleven honorary degrees and more than thirty awards for his human rights work, including awards from Columbia Law School and the American Bar Association for his lifetime achievements in International law. Following clerkships with Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the D.C. Circuit and Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, he served as Attorney-Adviser at the Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice and practiced law at Covington & Burling. As a Yale law professor since 1985, Koh has taught courses, authored or co-authored eight books, published more than 170 articles, testified before Congress, and litigated numerous cases involving international law issues. A Fellow of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council of the American Law Institute, he has served on the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law and as a Counselor of the American Society of International Law. He has sat on the boards of Harvard University, the Brookings Institution, Human Rights First, the American Arbitration Association, and the National Democratic Institute. He has been named one of America's "45 Leading Public Sector Lawyers Under The Age of 45" by American Lawyer magazine and one of the "100 Most Influential Asian-Americans of the 1990s" by A Magazine.
Hudson Medal Winner/Speaker Professor Edith Brown Weiss, Georgetown University Law School
Professor Brown Weiss is highly active in the areas of public international, environmental, and water resources law. In September 2002 she was appointed to the 3-member Inspection Panel of the World Bank and from 2003-2007 served as the President of the Inspection Panel, an appointment at the Vice-Presidential level. Her past professional experience includes positions as Associate General Counsel for International Activities at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1990-92, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering and Politics at Princeton University, and Research Associate at Columbia University and the Brookings Institution. Her numerous professional activities in both international and environmental law have included positions as President of the American Society of International Law, April 1994-96, chair of the Committee for Research in Global Environmental Change of the Social Science Research Council, 1989-94, U.S. Special Legal Advisor to the North American Commission on the Environment 1996-2002, and elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Law Institute, and the Commission on Environmental Law of the IUCN, where she is a member of the Steering Committee. She has been a member of the National Academy of Science's Commission on Geosciences, Environment and Resources, NAS Water Science and Technology Board, the NAS/Israel, Jordan, Palestinian Territories Panel on Sustainable Water Supplies in the Middle East, and the NAS Environmental Studies Board. She served on the Board of Directors of the Japanese Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, the Advisory Council of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Council of Advisors to the Cousteau Society, and on the Board of Trustees for the Center for International Environmental Law. Professor Brown Weiss is a member of the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law; Journal of International Economic Law; and International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics; and is the faculty adviser to the Georgetown International Environmental Law Review. She has published numerous articles in international and environmental law, and is the author of many books, including Fresh Water and International Economic Law (co-author, 2005), Reconciling Environment and Trade (co-author, 2001), Engaging Countries: Strengthening Compliance with International Environmental Accords (co-author, 1998), International Environmental Law and Policy (co-author 1998, 2007), and In Fairness to Future Generations: International Law, Common Patrimony, and Intergenerational Equity (1989), which received the Certificate of Merit Award in 1990 from the American Society of International Law, and has been published in French, Japanese, Spanish, and Chinese. In 2003, Professor Brown Weiss received the ABA Award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy, in 1994 the Elizabeth Haub Prize for international environmental law given by the Free University of Brussels and the International Council of Environmental Law (ICEL), and in 1996 the Prominent Women in International Law Award from the American Society of International Law.
An Interview with ICSID Secretary General Meg Kinnear
Meg Kinnear is currently Secretary-General of the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) at the World Bank. She was formerly the Senior General Counsel and Director General of the Trade Law Bureau of Canada, where she was responsible for the conduct of all international investment and trade litigation involving Canada, and participated in the negotiation of bilateral investment agreements. In November 2002, Ms. Kinnear was also named Chair of the Negotiating Group on Dispute Settlement for the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement.
From October 1996 to April 1999, Ms. Kinnear was Executive Assistant to the Deputy Minister of Justice of Canada. Prior to this, Ms Kinnear was Counsel at the Civil Litigation Section of the Canadian Department of Justice (from June 1984 to October 1996) where she appeared before federal and provincial courts as well as domestic arbitration panels.
Ms. Kinnear was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1984 and the Bar of the District of Columbia in 1982. She received a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) from Queen's University in 1978; a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from McGill University in 1981; and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the University of Virginia in 1982.
Ms. Kinnear has published numerous articles on international investment law and procedure and is a frequent speaker on these topics. She is a co-author of Investment Disputes under NAFTA (published in 2006 and updated in 2008 & 2009). She has also co-authored texts on Canadian legal procedure including Federal Court Practice (1988-1990, 1991-1992, and 1993-2009 annually) and 1995 Crown Liability and Proceedings Act Annotated, (1994).
Women in International Law Interest Group Honoree/Speaker Professor Dinah Shelton, George Washington University Law School
Professor Shelton joined the Law School faculty in 2004. Before her appointment, 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 1996-2004. She previously taught at Santa Clara University and was a visiting lecturer at the University of California, Davis, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, the University of Paris, and the University of Strasbourg, France. From 1987 to 1989, she was the director of the Office of Staff Attorneys at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Professor Shelton is the author or editor of three prize-winning books: Protecting Human Rights in the Americas (winner of the 1982 Inter-American Bar Association Book Prize and co-authored with Thomas Buergenthal); Remedies in International Human Rights Law (awarded the 2000 Certificate of Merit, American Society of International Law); and the three volume Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity (awarded a "Best Research" book award by the New York Public Library). She also has authored many articles and books on international law, human rights law, and international environmental law. She is a member of the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law and is a vice-president of the American Society of International Law.
Professor Shelton serves on the boards of many human rights and environmental organizations. In 2006, she was awarded the prestigious Elizabeth Haub Prize in Environmental Law. 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. In 2009, she became the first woman nominated by the United States to become a member of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, established by the Organization of American States to promote and protect human rights in the Western Hemisphere. She was elected to a four-year term in June, 2009.
