International Judicial Academy Events
Intellectual Property Seminars - This spring and summer, the Academy will conduct two seminars on international intellectual property law. One seminar will take place in Argentina and Chile in early June. The second will be conducted in Washington, DC from August 11 - 15.
Collaboration with International Law Institute - From July 7 - 18 the Academy will conduct a seminar on issues relating to Judicial and Court Administration in collaboration with the International Law Institute in Washington, DC.
Sir Richard May Seminar - The Academy will conduct the Fourth Sir Richard May Seminar on International Law & International Courts in The Hague from September 21 - 26. The delegation will consist of 24 state and federal judges from the United States as well as 3 judges from Argentina.
International Judicial Academy Joins ILAC
The International Judicial Academy recently was advised that it has been accepted as a member of the International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC). ILAC's Council unanimously voted to accept the Academy as a Member Organisation at its meeting on May 8, 2008. ILAC was founded in 2002 as a non-profit organization to bring together associations of legal and human rights experts from around the world. Other members include the Inter American Bar Association, American Judicature Society, and International Human Rights Law Institute, among others. Based in Stockholm, Sweden with offices around the world, ILAC focuses its efforts on countries rebuilding after war and armed conflicts. There are currently 42 Member Organisations and 23 Individual Members of the Consortium.
Announcing International Human Rights Law Seminar in Strasbourg
The International Judicial Academy has received a grant from the JEHT Foundation (Justice, Equality, Human dignity and Tolerance) in New York, NY to conduct a series of educational seminars for U.S. judges on international human rights law in Strasbourg, France. Because the United States is involved in and will most likely continue to be involved in international conflicts where human rights issues are of fundamental importance, U.S. judges sitting in both state and federal courts must become knowledgeable about basic principles of international human rights law.
Strasbourg is the site of the European Court of Human Rights, established by the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950. Its purpose is to monitor human rights compliance by the member states of the Council of Europe, which currently number 47. The seminar will cover a wide range of topics related to international human rights law through presentations and visits to the European Court of Human Rights and the European Parliament.
The Academy plans to conduct the first seminar in April, 2009. Announcements and invitations to apply for the seminar will be mailed out during the summer.
Insurance and Justice Seminar in Washington
At the end of April the International Judicial Academy conducted its first seminar on insurance and justice issues in Washington, DC. Fifteen judges, provincial and federal, and eight insurance executives from Argentina participated in this successful pilot seminar.
The one-week program began on Sunday, April 27 with a welcome reception at the Academy's office in downtown Washington, DC. The judges and executives were able to interact with many of the individuals who would be making presentations during the seminar. Chief Judge Rufus King and Judge Joan Zeldon of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Judge Roger Titus of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, and members of the staff of the Federal Judicial Center, among others, came to welcome the delegation.
The seminar agenda included presentations on a range of topics related to insurance and justice. Two notable sessions were those of Mr. Brian Atchinson, President & CEO of the Insurance Marketplace Standards Association, who addressed the seminar participants on consumer issues related to the insurance industry, and Mr. Peter Miller, President of the American Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, who addressed the issues of professional insurance education and the Institute for Global Insurance Education.
The American Insurance Association hosted the Academy's delegation for a full day of programming at its office in Washington, DC. David Snyder, AIA vice-president and assistant general counsel, arranged the visit. Mr. Snyder and his colleagues Philip Carson, Bruce Wood, and Pamela Young made presentations on worker's compensation, professional liability insurance, auto insurance, and financial accounting in the United States.
In addition to the academic sessions, the delegation visited various courts and organizations to see how the issues affect the justice system. At the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Greenbelt, MD, Judge Roger Titus and Magistrate Judge Jillyn Schulze discussed alternative dispute resolution tactics and new technology used by the District Court. The Argentine judges had the opportunity to visit the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to observe a trial and learn about the Superior Court's electronic case-filing system. At the Law Library of Congress, Law Librarian Dr. Rubens Medina and his staff spoke in depth with the judges about the Global Legal Information Network, a database of laws, judicial decisions, legislative records and legal literature from countries around the world.
The insurance executives met with officials at the U.S. Department of Commerce and Treasury Department to examine U.S. trade and commercial policies towards Latin America and financial market regulation in the U.S. The executives also visited the State Department where they met with Milton Drucker, Director of the Southern Latin America Office in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.
The Insurance & Justice Seminar ended on Friday, May 2 with a closing reception and dinner at the University Club in Washington, DC at which certificates of completion were presented. The seminar received high evaluations from all of the participants. The Academy plans to make the seminar an annual event.
IJA President Works With Liberian Judiciary
On the heels of a productive meeting with members of the Steering Committee for a Liberian judicial training center, Dr. James Apple, President of the IJA, was invited to attend the first educational program to celebrate the opening of the Liberian Judicial College in mid-June.
In late February of this year, Dr. Apple met with Hon. Kabbineh Ja'neh, an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of Liberia, Cllr. N. Oswlad Tweh, President of the Liberian National Bar Association, and Hon. J. Boima Kontoe, Resident Circuit Judge, Gbarnga, Bong County, at the Academy's Office in Washington, DC.
Dr. Apple and the three members of the Steering Committee discussed judicial training mechanisms and the steps needed to establish a judicial training program. Dr. Apple provided the members of the delegation with a history on the background of judicial education in the United States.
He discussed his experiences working with judges from around the world. He told the Steering Committee members that he believes the best way to achieve success is to start slowly with small judicial training programs on a local level and then later expanding to a national program. The members of the delegation agreed with his assessment, noting, "we learn and then draw lessons from the experience."
The Liberian Judicial Training Institute, to be called the James A. A. Pierre Judicial College, will conduct its first program in June 2008. The College is named after James A.A. Pierre, a former Attorney General and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia. During the conference Dr. Apple and Judge Kontoe will give a presentation on court management and court administration.
Science Seminar in Latin America
The International Judicial Academy recently broadened its programming in Latin America to include seminars in Chile. After conducting its 6th Seminar on "Bringing Judges Closer to the Sciences," in Buenos Aires and Mendoza, Argentina, the Academy held a one-day session addressing the same issues in Santiago, Chile. 276 judges and court administrators participated in the three-day seminar in Buenos Aires from May 6 - 8. An additional 87 attended the sessions in Mendoza; and there were 27 participants in the Chilean session.
The program brought together distinguished figures from the judicial, academic, and health environments to sit on a variety of panels, each one presided over by a judge from either Argentina or the United States. Topics addressed during the seminar ranged from ethical dilemmas facing judges and doctors to patient safety to scientific evidence.
The members of the U.S. delegation who accompanied Dr. James Apple, President of the IJA, to Latin America were: Judge D. Brock Hornby, U.S. District Court for the District of Maine; Judge Joan Zeldon, Superior Court of the District of Columbia; Dr. Kent McKelvey, Jr., Director of Predoctoral Education in the Department of Family and Preventative Medicine at the University of Arkansas Medical Center; and Dr. Karen Elizabeth Weck, Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the Director of Molecular Genetics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
Immigration Law Seminar for Embassy Officials
On April 16 the Academy held the third session in its series of seminars for embassy officials in Washington. The seminar on "The Basics of U.S. Immigration Law" attracted political ministers, consular officers, and first secretaries. Among the presenters at the Seminar were Jay Marks, the immigration law partner for Marks & Katz, LLC and the host of a biweekly immigration information session on the Spanish radio station Radio Zol 99.1 FM, and Martha Schoonover, a specialist in business immigration law with Greenberg Traurig, LLP. Other parts of the seminar series addressed the U.S. Legal System and U.S. Criminal Justice System.
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