By Ann W. Parks

Maj. Marie Anderson, associate professor of international and operational law at the Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, and Col. David Paschal, commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, discuss military involvement in the rule of law at the 2009 Sam Dash Conference on Human Rights at Georgetown Law March 20.

Many men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces attended the conference.

Thomas E. Ricks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning military reporter for the Washington Post, speaks to the crowd.

More than 70 men and women in the U.S. armed forces — wearing nearly every
type of military uniform from dress blues to army fatigues — were among the more than 200 attendees who participated in the 2009 Samuel Dash Conference on Human Rights at Georgetown Law on March 20. The conference, sponsored annually by the Law Center’s Human Rights Institute, honors the contributions of the late Professor Samuel Dash in the fields of international human rights and domestic civil rights.

This year, the Human Rights Institute teamed up with the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville as well as the University of Virginia School of Law to focus on the rule of law in military interventions — examining the practical implications, the risks, and the theories behind the military’s involvement in the rule of law.

In his first remarks since becoming general counsel of the Defense Department six weeks earlier, keynote speaker Jeh Johnson — speaking in a personal capacity — noted that promoting the rule of law is one of the cornerstones of the Obama Administration’s national security policy. Still, since “rule of law” means different things in different contexts, “we have to be careful how we use it,” Johnson said.

He cited the example of one of his uncles, one of a group of African American pilots (Tuskegee Airmen) who refused to acknowledge the rules of a segregated air base during World War II. For their courage, Johnson’s uncle and several others were sent to a military prison in Kentucky by a commanding officer — to be confined alongside German prisoners of war.

“In that instance, who was promoting the rule of law?” Johnson asked. “The base commander — armed with a legal opinion from an army JAG — or my uncle, armed only with the idealistic notion of what the equal protection clause should be?”

In a modern context, Johnson noted that America’s rule of law efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan largely have involved reviving a pre-existing legal system (Iraq), or establishing a new legal system where none previously existed (Afghanistan). Yet he cautioned that the U.S. military alone may not always be the best answer.

“A soldier with a gun and a uniform may not be the ideal messenger for change,” Johnson said. “Rule of law initiatives must be an interagency process…. Like our president, I believe we must lead not by the example of our power, but by the power of our example.”

Humility

Thomas E. Ricks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning military reporter for the Washington Post, delivered a lunchtime address on “the surge,” referring to then-President George Bush’s deployment of 30,000 additional American troops in Iraq in 2007. Ricks is the author of a recent book entitled The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 (Penguin, 2009) as well as an earlier book on the war entitled Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (Penguin, 2006).

“There are three things that people in this country don’t understand about the war in Iraq right now: first, how difficult and how different ‘the surge’ was from previous policy; second, that the surge failed; and third, that the war is far from over,” Ricks said, — after a brief introduction by Georgetown Law Professor and Human Rights Institute Director Rosa Brooks.

Noting that any solutions to the Iraq situation will likely best be accomplished through talking as opposed to fighting, Ricks told the story of a U.S. military captain who, hearing rumors that a local insurgent in Iraq had planted 200 bombs against the Americans, invited the man to tea. The captain soon discovered that his guest, who professed to hate Americans, was such a huge fan of the Hollywood movie “Titanic” that he cried on each of the seven occasions he watched it. Eventually, the insurgent gave the captain the information he wanted. “They find common ground,” Ricks said.

(Ricks also sat down with Law Center Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff to discuss his work in Georgetown Law’s Web interview series, On Point@Georgetown Law. The interview can be seen at www.law.georgetown.edu/onPoint/.)

Successes

Panels on military involvement in the rule of law, featuring military and civilian lawyers as well as professors and representatives of various organizations, highlighted some of the on-the-ground successes achieved in Iraq under the rule of law — such as the placing of judges at a local courthouse as opposed to an army base, and the fostering of a dialog between police and judges over effective methods of evidence collection. Georgetown Law Professor Jane Stromseth moderated a panel entitled, “Whose Job is it Anyway?” looking at how different institutions work together to engage in operations overseas. A third panel looked at the more abstract risks and theories behind military involvement in the rule of law.

At the start of the day, Aleinikoff announced the creation of a new Samuel Dash endowed scholarship, to be awarded to students in need who excel in the professional responsibility, criminal law and procedure or human rights fields. The scholarship was made possible through the generosity of an anonymous donor.

“It’s a lovely permanent tribute to Sam,” Aleinikoff said.

Members of the Dash family, including his wife Sara and his daughters Judi and Rachel, attended the conference.

A Webcast of the conference may be seen at http://www.law.georgetown.edu/webcast/eventDetail.cfm?eventID=772