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L E C T U R E S  A N D  E V E N T S: Nontraditional Lawyers Discuss Public Service  | Security, Technology, and Privacy   |  E.C. Commissioner Mario Monti Delivers Second Annual Miles W. Kirkpatrick Antitrust Lecture |Gideon V. Wainwright at 40 | Hart Lecturer Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot Lauds Respect in Education  |Journals Host Symposia  | Speakers Discuss Constitutional Rights, Judicial Selection, and Foreign Affairs  |Student Achievements Public Service Awards|  |HomeCourt Scores Another Big Check    |Graduation 2003
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J O U R N A L S   H O S T   S Y M P O S I A   O N   I N T E R N A T I O N A L   L A W,   
C O R P O R A T E  L A W,  A N D  T H E  D E A T H  P E N A L T Y
Important symposia during the 2003 spring semester were sponsored by numerous student-run law journals, including Georgetown’s newest journal, The Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, which published its inaugural issue in fall 2002.
     Events started in January.That month, Nitin Desai, undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs at the United Nations, keynoted a conference sponsored by the Georgetown International Environmental Law Review. Focusing on the symposium’s theme,“The Road from Johannesburg: Understanding Outcomes of the World Summit on Sustainable Development,” Desai, who was secretary-general of that summit – which was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2001 –discussed the various challenges emerging from it. He questioned whether the summit’s constituents were correct in suggesting that no new international environmental laws would be engendered by it. He also discussed possible movements toward the privatization of international law.
     Panelists included Brett Pomainville of the Office of Policy Coordination and Initiatives in the Bureau of Oceans, International Environmental and Scientific Affairs in the State Department, and John Pendergrass, director of the Center for State, Local, and Regional Environmental Programs at the Environmental Law Institute.Also participating were Jeffrey Barber, executive director of the Integrative Strategies Forum, Hilary French, director of the Global Governance Project at the Worldwatch Institute, and Daniel Magraw, executive director of the Center for International Environmental Law.
     On February 14, the journal Law and Policy in International Business held a forum on “International Harmonization of Antitrust and Intellectual Property.” Discussing trends in negotiations 		between nations were Alden Abbott and Susan Stark DeSanti of the Federal Trade Commission, Christopher Kelly of the law firm Kaye Scholer,Abbot Lipsky Jr. and William Tom of the ABA Antitrust section, Jason Mahler of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, James Rill of the law firm Howrey, Simon, Arnold & White, and Law Center Professor Barry Carter.
     The American Criminal Law Review chose the death penalty as the theme for its February 25 symposium.The panel, “Current Issues in Capital Punishment: Juveniles, the Mentally Impaired, and
Innocence, ” debated moratoriums on the death penalty in Illinois and Maryland, the Supreme Court’s exclusion of mentally retarded defendants from capital punishment in Atkins v. Virginia, and the case of John Lee Malvo and the Washington, D.C.-area sniper attacks of fall 2002. Law Center Professor Julie Sullivan moderated a panel that included Steven Hawkins, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, William Broaddus, former attorney general for the Commonwealth of Virginia, Douglas Gansler, state’s attorney for Montgomery County, and William Otis, former White House special counsel to President George H.W. Bush.

  The Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law held a March 28 conference on “Anatomy of Outsider Jurisprudence: Examining Multiple Identities of Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Law.” University of Miami Law School Professor Francisco Valdes delivered an address based on his recent book, Queer Margins, Queer Ethics: A Call to Account for Race and Ethnicity in the Law, Theory, and Politics of “Sexual Orientation.” This year’s Wendy Webster Williams Award was presented at the symposium to award-winning journalist Patricia Gaines.
     That week also saw “Security, Technology, and Individual Rights:The Convergence of Our History, Our Ideals, and Our Innovative Spirit,” a conference sponsored by the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, the first issue of which debuted in fall 2002.The journal focuses on the study of conservative, libertarian, and natural law jurisprudence. After a keynote speech on technology and privacy by George Washington University Law Professor Jeffrey Rosen, three panels explored this issue in detail.
     The last journal-hosted symposium of the year was “After Sarbanes-Oxley: A Panel Discussion of Law and Legal Ethics in the Era of Corporate Scandal,” held by The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics on March 31. Signed into law in 2002, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act empowers the Securities and Exchange Commission to hold lawyers accountable under federal law for particular conduct regarding corporate financial irregularities. Panelists debating the implications of this act included Paul Gonson of the law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, University of Virginia Law Professor George Cohen, George Washington University Law Professor Thomas Morgan, and Richard Humes of the SEC.

 

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