Query: Learning More About the ICC


I just learned that the University of Connecticut School of Law is starting an International Human Rights Clinic in the spring semester. The clinic will be taught by Professor Mark Janis. I have applied for permission to audit the course. It strikes me as a unique opportunity to learn about emerging international norms for the enforcement of human rights.

My real passion, however, is to learn more about the International Criminal Court at the Hague. I am persuaded that the American Century, has ended. Global challenges involving the environment, trade, hunger and violence require more than spasmodic assertions of national might by countries with the means to make the effort. Global issues require global institutions; the development of international law and norms are necessary.

One of Dante's lesser-known works, De Monarchia, resonates now, some seven hundred years after it was written. Although written in defense of a universal monarchy, the work still stands as a plea for something like world government. The late-medieval schism between church and state did not yield universal peace, a necessary condition for human happiness. One can argue that clinging to national sovereignty in a world rapidly growing evermore interdependent is disruptive, as disruptive today as was the papacy's conflict with emerging nation-states centuries ago.

The United States has not signed on to the International Criminal Court, but that does not mean that American lawyers cannot participate in the development of necessary international institutions. Has anyone out there more information on the ICC, or participated in cases before that court? I am aware of the publications produced by the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, at the University of Oslo. At this point, I'd like to talk to someone with more hands on experience.

I am hoping the University of Connecticut lets me audit the Human Rights seminar, but one never knows ...

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