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3 International Judicial Observer 1 (1996)

handle is hein.congcourts/ijudiob0003 and id is 1 raw text is: International uicial bserve
NEWS AND COMMENTARY OF INTEREST TO JUDGES AROUND THE WOR
Ajointpublication of the Federal Judicial Center and the American Society ofInternational Law • Number 3 • September I

Major International
Judicial Conference
to Meet in Washington
The fourth International Judicial Con-
ference for justices of supreme courts and
constitutional courts in Europe will con-
vene at the Federal Judicial Center in Wash-
ington, D.C., October 1-2, 1996.
The conference is being organized by
the Center for Democracy, a Washington-
based nonprofit corporation, with assis-
tance from the Federal Judicial Center and
is being funded primarily by a grant from
the U.S. Agency for International Develop-
ment.
The focus ofthe conference will be The
Role of an Independent Judiciary: Imple-
mentation of Criminal Justice and Com-
mercial Law Reforms. It will consist of
five plenary sessions dealing with the fol-
lowing topics:
* the role of the judiciary in democratic
market societies during stages oftransition,
with comparative European models;
* issues of interpretation of commercial
and criminal laws;
 court organization;
 international issues and obligations;
and
* judicial leadership.
Chief Justice Vyacheslav Lebedev ofthe
Supreme Court of the Russian Federation
will lead a panel discussion for the first
session. Other panelists for the session will
be Justice Lech Gralicki of the Constitu-
tional Court ofPoland and JusticeAlexander
Arabadjiev of the Constitutional Court of
Bulgaria.
Speakers for other panels include Jus-
tice Veniamen Yakovlev of the Russian
Supreme Arbitrage Court, Justice Milan
Karabin of the Supreme Court of the Slo-
vak Republic, Justice Steffan Magnusson
of the Supreme Court of Sweden, Justice
Claude Rouiller of the Federal Tribunal of
Switzerland, Stefan Trechsel, president of
the European Commission of Human
Rights, and Justice Vladimir Paul of the
Constitutional Court of the Czech Repub-
lic.
Chief Justice Rait Maruste of the Na-
tional Court of Estonia will make a presen-
tation at the final session on judicial leader-
ship.
At least three justices of the U.S. Su-
preme Court are expected to take part in the
conference: Justices Sandra Day O' Connor,
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Antonin Scalia.

The conference will be the fourth orga-
nized by the Center for Democracy. The
first two conferences were held in
Strasbourg, France, in 1993 and 1994. Last
year's conference was held at the
Georgetown University Law Center in
Washington, D.C. LI

Center for Democracy President Allen
Weinstein and Vice President ofthe Con-
stitutional Court of the Czech Republic
Ivana Janu at last year's International
Judicial Conference.

Former U.S. Judge Presides at First International War Crimes Trial
Since Nuremberg; McDonald Heads Three-Judge Panel in The Hague

by James G. Apple
Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, the third Af-
rican-American woman to be appointed to
the federal judiciary, is now presiding over
the first international war crimes trial since
the Nuremberg trials in 1945-1946.
Judge McDonald leads a three-judge
panel hearing the trial of Dusan Tadic, a
Bosnian Serb bar owner accused of atroci-
ties committed in 1992 in and around
Serbian prison camps in northwestern
Bosnia during the civil war in Bosnia-
Herzegovina. The trial began in The Hague
in May of this year.
Selected as one of the 11 members of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia in the early fall of 1993
by a committee of the United Nations,
Judge McDonald received the highest num-
ber of votes among 22 candidates for the
Tribunal. She took the oath of office for her
new position in November 1993.
Herpanel is hearing 132 separate charges
against Tadic for crimes against humanity
and war crimes under the Geneva Conven-
tion that involve gang rape, beatings, tor-
ture, and murder of Muslim and Croat pris-
oners at three prison camps. He has been in
custody since the spring of last year.
Tadic's trial is expected to last four
months and may involve the testimony of
150 witnesses.
The other 10 members of the tribunal

Gabrielle McDonald, former judge
of the U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of Texas, presides
over war crimes trial in The Hague,
Netherlands.

D Antonio Cassese of Italy (President of
the International Criminal Tribunal and head
of its Chamber of Appeal);
* Adolphus Karibi-Whyte of Nigeria;
* Haopei Li of the People's Republic of
China;
 Jules Deschenes of Canada;
 Sir Ninian Stephen of Australia;
 Claude Jorda of France;
 Elizabeth Odio-Benito of Costa Rica;
 Fouad Riad of Egypt;
 Lal Chand Vohrah of Malaysia; and
 Rustam S. Sidhwa of Pakistan.
Judges Vohrah and Stephen are sitting

with Judge McDonald on the Tadic case.
The chief prosecutor for the Tribunal is
Richard J. Goldstone of South Africa. The
specific prosecutor for the Tadic trial is
Grant Niemann of Australia.
Judge McDonald was appointed a U.S.
district judge in Houston in 1979 by Presi-
dent Jimmy Carter. Prior to her appoint-
ment she had been a lawyer for the NAACP
Legal Defense and Education Fund in New
York, and a practicing lawyer with her
husband in Houston, specializing in plain-
tiff employment discrimination cases.
She resigned her federal appointment in
1988 to return to private practice in Austin
and San Antonio.
After accepting an offer to teach at the
Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas
Southern University in 1993, Judge
McDonald received a call from Conrad
Harper, Legal Adviser in the U.S. State
Department, asking her if she was inter-
ested in the war crimes tribunal position.
After first rejecting the idea, she then ac-
cepted the nomination.
Following her selection she worked with
members of the faculty of the law school at
Texas Southern University to develop a
procedural code for the Tribunal, some of
which was later incorporated into a final
code adopted by the full tribunal.
Judge McDonald attended Boston Uni-
versity and Hunter College in New York,
and graduated first in her class from Howard
University School of Law in Washington,
D.C., in 1966. F]

Where to Find It: The Substance of International Law

by James G. Apple
Domestic judges faced with deciding a
case that involves the application of or
reference to international law may question
where one goes to find the substance of it.
Article 38 of the Statute of the Interna-
tional Court ofJustice prescribes the sources
of international law to be used in the reso-
lution of disputes: international conven-
tions, international custom, the general prin-
ciples of law recognized by civilized na-
tions, judicial decisions, and the teachings
of the most highly qualified publicists of
the various nations.
There exist a number of resources to
assist the researcher in locating the sub-
stance of international law, not only for
American judges but for judges around the
world. While it would not be possible to
review all publications that provide materi-
als relating to, and commentaries about,
international law, the following is a de-
scription of some ofthe major resources for
finding international law in the various
forms in which it exists:
International Legal Materials (ILM)-
ILM is a bimonthly publication oftheAmeri-
can Society of International Law, located in
Washington, D.C. ILM is published in Janu-
ary, March, May, July, September, and
November.
There are currently 35 volumes of ILM
containing the texts of important treaties
and agreements; decisions in judicial and
similar proceedings, such as arbitral awards;
texts of important legislation and regula-
tions; texts of a variety of documents, such
as U.N. GeneralAssembly resolutions; sum-
maries of international law meetings and
conferences; and reports of trade negotia-
tions.

One special section of ILM relates to
recent actions regarding treaties to which
the United States is a party and treaties to
which the United States is not a party.
Further information about the ILM can
be obtained from the American Society of
International Law, 2223 Massachusetts
Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20008-
2864, phone (202) 939-6000.
International Law Reports-The Re-
search Center for International Law at the
University of Cambridge in England regu-
larly publishes, through Grotius Publica-
tions ofthe University of Cambridge Press,
another compendium of treaties, judicial
decisions, and other materials.
InternationalLaw Reports was first pub-
lished in 1932 by the Department of Inter-
national Studies at the London School of
Economics. There are now 101 volumes of
the series, which contain decisions of inter-
national courts and tribunals, decisions of
national courts relating to international law
(including U.S. court decisions), treaty pro-
visions, decisions of arbitral tribunals, and
other materials.
An index to volumes 81-100 covering
the period 1990-1995 was published in
January of this year. According to a preface
in the publication, International Law Re-
ports endeavor to provide within a single
series of volumes comprehensive access in
English to judicial materials bearing on
international law. Further information
about the Reports can be obtained from the
Research Center for International Law, 5
Cramner Road, Cambridge, England
CB39BL, phone 01223-335358.
International Court ofJustice Reports-
Judgments, advisory opinions, and orders
ofthe International Court of Justice (ICJ) in

The Hague, Netherlands, are printed in the
reports of that court. Information about this
and other publications relating to the court
can be obtained from the Sales Section,
United Nations, New York, NY 10017, or
from Distribution and Sales Section, Office
of the United Nations, 1211 Geneva 10,
Switzerland.
Reports of Cases Before the European
Court ofJustice and the European Court of
First Instance-Judicial decisions of the
European Court of Justice and the Euro-
pean Court of First Instance in Luxem-
bourg are collected and published in reports
of cases for those two courts. The reports
are published in nine languages: Spanish,
Danish, German, Greek, English, French,
Italian, Dutch, and Portuguese.
The reports usually include a summary
of the judgment, the opinion of the Advo-
cate General and the judgment of the court.
See SUBSTANCE, page 4
Inside...
Legal Reform in Bulgaria 2
International Criminal Court 2
Trip to Zambia 3
International Law as Binding
Rules 4
Notice to our readers
Downloadable files of all editions of the
International Judicial Observer can be
found at the Federal Judicial Center's
web site (http://www.fj c.gov) on the World
Wide Web. Observer issues can be found
by clicking the Publications icon and look-
ing under the heading State-Federal Ju-
dicial Affairs.

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