Jackson Center On Cutting Edge Of Law
Jamestown Post-Jounal 10/02/05
By STEVEN M. SWEENEY
CHAUTAUQUA — The Athenaeum Hotel’s cheery halls are emptier today. Summer is long since finished and September guests from the region’s first international criminal law symposium have gone home.
But friendly reminders remain: business cards swapped among renowned scholars, able attorneys and eager grad students, the impressions of speeches from the last living Nuremberg participants and good discussion. Symposium organizers planned little more than this and an official distribution of transcripts.
Others already see much more.
‘‘It allows people who read about it and think about it to meet and it brings together practitioners,’’ said David Crane, former chief prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
He’s not alone in his assessment.
‘‘It serves two purposes. First, the dialogue it creates with the larger community not directly involved in the functions of criminal law,’’ said Lawrence Douglas, Amherst College’s law department chairman in Amherst, Mass. ‘‘The other purpose is for sharing experiences and ideas. This is an exciting moment in international law. Sierra Leone, Tanzania are all happening. I did not know that much about Sierra Leone. It is kind of an education that you take with you.’’
He will take this new knowledge directly to students at Amherst who are currently in his international law class.
‘‘The things I’ve learned about Nuremberg and — always — seeing people like Whitney Harris, Henry King and Richard Sonnenfeldt. It’s not a matter of history to them,’’ Douglas said of the living Nuremberg participants. ‘‘In their mind’s eye, recalling Goering means recalling sitting in the same room and talking to him.’’
Harris admits his personal history is now a rare commodity, but he shies away from being called anything like a legal star.
‘‘I’m only here because of longevity. And then, only because I took part in a great trial,’’ Harris said giving kudos to his old boss, Robert Jackson. ‘‘Jackson is the real star.’’
He said the symposium, sponsored by Chautauqua Institution, the Robert H. Jackson Center and the State College at Fredonia, seemed to be very successful.
And without saying so, Harris, King, Sonnenfeldt and Robert Donihi, the last surviving Tokyo war crimes prosecutor, have passed a mantle to younger attorneys, men like Douglas, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Michael Newton and Crane. They are now challenged to learn much and teach new generations to appreciate international criminal law, still in its infancy.
‘‘Tribunals may not be the way to go. But everyone here has tipped their hats to Justice Robert H. Jackson for starting it all,’’ said Rolland Kidder, Jackson Center executive director. ‘‘Here, academics and lawyers have been sitting down and breaking bread preparing to take it to the next level. We’re already planning a similar conference next year at Bowling Green University.’’
In so doing, the Jackson Center is honing itself to be on the international law’s leading edge — after only four and half years in existence.
‘‘In bringing these people together, we can’t help but advance respect of the law,’’ Harris said. ‘‘I think it highlights positions most of the lawyers would like to learn. It is bound to effect practitioners’ conceptions of the law.’’