Over the past few years, Japanese criminal justice has undergone major reform. The most highly publicized change has been the introduction of the "jury" system. Less well known, but of great practical importance, are other reforms, including measures designed to strengthen the adversary system; measures recognizing interests of victims; and significant increases in penalties. Professor Foote has been following Japanese criminal justice for over twenty-five years. His talk will examine the roots of the reforms and the ills they were intended to remedy; the forces that led to their enactment and reaction to them; and the impact to date and future prospects.

This event is co-sponsored with the Center for East Asian Studies.

Anthony Heard was the Editor of the Cape Times during the apartheid struggle and was arrested and charged under security laws for defying the white Nationalist government and publishing a full-page interview with Oliver Tambo, the banned and "silenced" President in exile of the African National Congress. For this, Heard was awarded the Golden Pen of Freedom by the World Association of Newspapers in 1986. Fired by his paper in 1987, he went on to become an internationally-syndicated freelance columnist, including for the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He joined the government of Nelson Mandela on the advent of democracy in 1994, first as a ministerial special adviser and then joining the Presidency in 2000 as a communications specialist and special adviser, at deputy director-general level. Having recently left the Presidency, Heard is visiting the USA to take up a public policy scholarship at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC from 1 March through 30 June, 2010. He is preparing a personal memoir of his 16 years' advising government in South Africa. His previous book, The Cape of Storms (Univ. of Arkansas Press 1990), dealt with his experiences as an embattled editor in the apartheid era.

Co-sponsored by the Center for African Studies

Professor Li Liangdong is currently the Department Head of the Central Party School's Politics and Law Department. He directly advises senior officials in the Chinese Communist Party. Professor Li received his doctorate from the Central Party School in Law.  His main research areas are: democratic perspective, Western political thought, and political theory.

Some of his key works include: Contemporary Chinese Studies of Public Opinion (Central Party School Press, 1996), Mao Zedong and Chinese Farmers (China Farmers Press, 1993), Contemporary Chinese Democracy Studies (Contemporary World Press, 2001 edition), and Third Wave and the Chinese Democracy (Central Party School Press, 2001 edition). He has published over 300 articles.  Professor Li has hosted discussions on topics including "Public Discussion in China," "Societal Transitions", and "Study of Political Stability"

Co-sponsored by the Center for Deliberative Democracy

Abstract
In order to eliminate nuclear weapons, the world will first have to pass through a regime of "low numbers" in which the US and Russian arsenals contain hundreds of weapons. The conclusion of the New START agreement, along with President Medvedev and President Obama's intention to work on a successor treaty, have brought this prospect forward. Many Western and Russian analysts worry that such a world might be unstable. However, in spite of these fears, the "low numbers problem" has attracted surprisingly little attention in the past (perhaps because the prospect of deep reductions always seemed so remote). In this talk, I will argue that the most likely type of instability is rearmament. I will examine potential drivers of rearmament and discuss steps to ensure that its likelihood can be minimized.

James M. Acton is an associate in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment specializing in nonproliferation and disarmament. A physicist by training, Acton’s research focuses on the interface of technical and political issues, with special attention to the civilian nuclear industry, IAEA safeguards, and practical solutions to strengthening the nonproliferation regime.

Before joining the Endowment in October 2008, Acton was a lecturer at the Centre for Science and Security Studies in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. There he co-authored the Adelphi Paper, Abolishing Nuclear Weapons, with George Perkovich and was a consultant to the Norwegian government on disarmament issues. Prior to that, Acton was the science and technology researcher at the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC), where he was a participant in the UK–Norway dialogue on verifying the dismantlement of warheads.

Acton’s other previous research projects include analyses of IAEA safeguards in Iran, verifying disarmament in North Korea, preventing novel forms of radiological terrorism, and the capability of Middle Eastern states to develop nuclear energy. He has published in Jane’s Intelligence Review, Nonproliferation Review, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Survival, and the New York Times. In the UK, he appeared regularly on TV and radio, including on the BBC programs Newsnight, Horizon, and the Six O’clock News.

Dr. Songs talk will focus on the question concerning interpretation and possible application of Article 121 of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), in particular its third paragraph, to the selected disputed offshore islands or rocks that are situated in the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. A number of recent developments occurred in the East Asian waters that are relevant to or have the potential to give rise to the problem of interpretation and application of the said article will first be cited. Then, a brief summary of the development of the "Regime of Islands" at UNCLOS III will be given, focusing in particular on those proposals made by the participating delegations to amend or delete entirely Article 121(3) of UNCLOS. The views of the law of the sea experts on interpretation and application of Article 121(3) will be examined. Several selected examples of state practices with regard to the application or interpretation of Article 121(3) will then be provided. This is to be followed by discussing the interpretation and possible application of Article 121(3) to the selected disputed offshore islands that are situated in the East Asian waters. Finally, several suggestions for possible amendment to Article 121 or policy measures to help deal with the confusion found in Article 121(3) will be offered.

Yann-huei Song received his undergraduate degree from National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan, a Master's degree in Political Science from Indiana State University, Indiana, USA, a LL.M. degree from the University of California School of Law (Boalt Hall), Berkeley, California, USA, a doctoral degree in International Relations from Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, USA, and a JSD degree from the University of California School of Law (Boalt Hall), Berkeley.

Following graduation from Kent State University, Dr. Song taught at Department of Political Science, Indiana State University as Assistant Professor in 1988. He then returned to his country and taught as an Associate Professor at Institute of Maritime Law, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan in 1990. Currently, Dr. Song is a research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei, Taiwan, and distinguished professor of the Graduate Institute of International Politics at National Ching Hsing University (NCHU), Taichung, Taiwan. He is also dean of the Office of International Affaris at NCHU.

Dr. Song's research interests are in the fields of International Law of the Sea, International Fisheries Law, International Environmental Law, National Ocean Policy Study, Naval Arms Control and Maritime Security. He has published articles in journals such as Political Geography Quarterly, Asian Survey, Marine Policy, Chinese Yearbook of International Law and Affairs, Issues and Studies, The American Asian Review, Ocean Development and International Law, EurAmerica, Ecology Law Review, the International Journal of Coastal and Marine Law, The Indonesian Quarterly and others.

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom that oil causes international contention by explaining how the high costs of petroleum conquest deter territorial aggression. In oil-rich territories, interstate violence is inspired by other factors. The claim is tested through an examination of Nigeria and Cameroon's dispute over the Bakassi Peninsula, drawing on the author's fieldwork in both countries.

Emily Meierding is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a predoctoral fellow at CISAC. Her dissertation examines how the presence of petroleum resources affects the initiation and escalation of international territorial disputes. She has conducted dissertation research and language study in Syria, Morocco, Nigeria and Cameroon. Meierding holds a BA in History from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a MA in Political Science from the University of Chicago.

Jessica Gottlieb is a PhD Candidate in the Political Science Department at Stanford University.  Her research is on the relationship between democracy and development, particularly in her region of interest, francophone West Africa.  She studies the impact of decentralization and local democracy on political accountability and public goods outcomes.   She received her BA in Political Science from Yale University and has also spent time in Washington, DC working at the Center for Global Development. 

Since World War II, a major element of globalization has involved the expansion of human rights norms, rules, and institutions.  This broad movement represents a dramatic shift from earlier emphases on the rights and duties of citizens of national states.  The human rights movement stresses universal and global rights, and the general responsibility to support these rights anywhere in the world, independent of national sovereignty boundaries.  This research project focuses both on the expansion of the human rights movement at the global level and the impact of the movement on national states and societies around the world. 
 
Research studies in the program track, and attempt to account for, the rapid expansion of human rights treaties, inter-governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, and popular and professional discourse advocating human rights.  The studies also track the rapid expansion of the substantive rights involved, from simple principles of protection and due process to greatly expanded human rights to active cultural and political participation and self-expression.  And the studies track the expansion, over the whole post-War period, of the groups particularly emphasized in the human rights movement women, children, older people, indigenous people, poor people, handicapped people, gay and lesbian people, and members of all sorts of religious and ethnic minorities. 
 
Since 1970, the world human rights movement has expanded its earlier focus on the legal protections of the individual person, to a more empowered and empowering focus on human rights education.  And studies in the program now focus heavily on the expansion worldwide of human rights education.

At this workshop, Mark Goodale will be delivering a talk entitled "Human Rights in an Anthropological Key." Mark is an anthropologist who specializes in legal anthropology, human rights and culture, comparative ethical practice and epistemology, the anthropology of morality, and conflict studies. He has been conducting research in Bolivia since 1996 and during 2003-2004 (as a Fulbright scholar) he studied Romania’s efforts to reform its political and legal institutions in preparation for accession to the European Union in 2007. He came to George Mason's Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution in the fall of 2003 after serving as the first Marjorie Shostak Distinguished Lecturer in Anthropology at Emory University. His Ph.D. is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2001).

He is the author of two recent books: Surrendering to Utopia: An Anthropology of Human Rights (Stanford University Press, 2009) and Dilemmas of Modernity: Bolivian Encounters with Law and Liberalism (Stanford University Press, 2008). He is currently at work on two new books: the first is an ethnographic analysis of sociopolitical change and the moral imagination in Bolivia based on three years of research funded by the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation; the second is a volume of essays on human rights and moral creativity.