Seeking Progressive Changes from the Heart of Hanoi

Hanoi has the most unique traffic pyramid I have ever encountered. One where an entity's size -- whether a vehicle, rickshaw, cart, or pedestrian -- determines its power on the road. Irrespective of this sheer physical and phenotypical power, pedestrians and stray animals push their way through the never ending waves of motor bikes and occasional SUVs amidst the very narrow city roads, where streets too are populated with parked motor-bikes. This power-play on Hanoi's roads is analogous to state-state interactions in international law, which makes it a wonderfully appropo place to host this year's annual IADL conference. The conference will be discussing issues central to contemporary International Law: Right to Peace, Accountability in the Internatinal Criminal Court System, an Independent Judiciary, ESC Rights, and the Right to Development and Environmental Security.

I came to the conference with very little knowledge about NLG's International Committee and the IADL in general. However, the introduction meeting today clarified the history and the objectives of the conference. As we feasted over various vegetarian dishes in Hanoi's old quarter, Jeannie Myers, the current Secretary-General of the IADL gave us brief intro to the organization and the conference itself. IADL was founded in 1946 by the prosecutors of the Nuremberg trial, with the objective of creating an international coalition of lawyers to realize the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, further enshrined in conventions like the CCPRs, and CESRs. It has lawyer-members from over 100 countries, and they collectively attempt to carry out the struggle against violations of these foundational principals of modern international law. The conference will be attended by over 220 legal practitioners and students, and the President of Vietnam will give the plenary talk!!

Regardless of the fan and flare of the line-up, what I found most interesting were the career paths of the lawyers with whom I met. I would say over half of the 16 or so lawyers present had worked directly on labor and employment issues across America, and almost all had served as staunch opponents of the Vietnam War (and presumably Iraq too!). In fact, Jeannie spend the last 10 years of her career to use legal avenues to bring compensation to the victims of Agent Orange via American war-tactics during the 60s and 70s. It was refreshing to see American lawyers working on justice issues across the world, from Human Trafficking issues in Tajikistan, to human rights promotion in post-conflict Bosnia and Croatia to serving as defense counsel at the ICTR to pushing for peace on the Korean peninsula to suing oil companies for their misadventures in Nigeria to working with advocacy groups in Venezuela & Cuba. It was pretty inspiring to be sitting among a group of folks who were reaching beyond the rhetoric to make things happen, and hopefully this would serve as a good segway into tomorrow's events!

Anurag Gupta,
NYU Law School