This fall semester, Professors Cynthia Mertens and Beth Van Schaack teamed up with the Center for Global Law and Policy in offering a seminar and speaker series on Contemporary Legal Issues: El Salvador.
Friday afternoons, students, faculty, and staff were invited to attend lectures given by law professors, lawyers, researchers, victims, and other individuals impacted by political repression, human rights violations, and other international and transitional justice issues. Some of the attendees were law students who will travel to El Salvador with Professor Mertens this winter break to meet with experts in El Salvador human rights law and with individuals affected by or influencing human rights laws in that country.
Speakers in the series included SCU law professors Beth Van Schaack and Philip Jimenez, and SCU professor of political science, Jane Curry. The case of Romagoza v. Garcia was a focal point for both Professor Van Schaack and guest speaker Carlos Mauricio, who was one of the plaintiffs in that case. The Pinochet case was highlighted by two guest speakers, Professor Roht-Arriaza (UC Hastings College of the Law) and Professor Carlos Castresana Fernandez (visiting Professor at USF, and author of the formal complaint and subsequent reports in the Pinochet case before the Audiencia Nacional in Spain). Other speakers included Rick Jones, Executive Director of Catholic Relief Services in El Salvador, and Doris Gödl, affiliated with the Institute for Social Research and Development in Austria.
The series is the first of several such lecture series to be hosted by the newly-formed Center for Global Law & Policy at the Santa Clara University School of Law. For more information, please email cglp@scu.edu or go to:
http://lawscuedustage.wpengine.com/international/news_and_events.html
