was Robert Trent Jones, I was even more thrilled.” In that same year, Jack Barceló, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of International and Comparative Law, arrived at Cornell Law School as a newly minted assistant professor and met Song, a new candidate for a doctorate in law. “He did his degree in record time,” Barceló recalled. “He was very diligent and extremely talented.” William Tucker Dean and David Curtis were members of Song’s committee, and Barceló recalled sitting in on a meeting. “You could see that Song was destined for great things,” he said. Barceló has invited Song back to lecture several times, including a recent alumni event at Cornell’s Summer Institute of International and Comparative Law in Paris. The ICC was established by the 2002 Rome Statute, now signed by 120 countries, with the purpose of ending impunity for war crimes and contributing to their prevention. It is an independent international organization. While the United States was a prime negotiator in the Rome Statute, and is willing to support the court’s efforts, they do not plan to join. Professor Jens Ohlin, who specializes in international law, noted that “at first, people were unsure about what the ICC would look like and whether it would be successful. All those doubts have been erased.”
Song always stresses the complementarity of the ICC. “It is the responsibility of the national legal systems to prosecute Rome Statute crimes. Only if they can’t or do not want to do so, only then does the ICC step in,” he said. A state can ask for help from the ICC, and the UN Security Council can request that the ICC look into an issue. In fact, Song characterizes the newly emerging criminal justice system as “a big puzzle,” composed not only of the ICC states, but also all intergovernmental organizations, such as the EU and the UN, as well as NGOs. So far, twenty-eight persons have been subject to ICC proceedings or arrest warrants. On March 14, the court issued its first judgment, in the case against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, for use of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Most of the African investigations have been started because a state has referred the case,” Ohlin explained, adding that a recent YouTube video about another child soldier case involving Joseph Kony “has become viral. You see that the ICC can put certain issues on the forefront worldwide.” “Crimes against international law are created by men, not abstract entities,” Song explains. “Punishing such individuals is an important step toward peace, justice, and the rule of law.”
A Child of China’s Cultural Revolution, Yiwei Chang, J.D. ‘86 / J.S.D. ‘90 Pioneers Path to Success Yiwei Chang, J.D. ’86/J.S.D. ‘90’s life was turned upside down by China’s Cultural Revolution when she was still a girl. In 1966 all the schools in China were closed and she was separated from her parents and sent for “re-education” to a remote mountain village that was among the poorest in China. There she labored in the fields, plowing and carrying heavy loads. But the farming families with whom she lived were “the kindest and most generous
people I have known,” she says. “They took good care of us, as if we were their own children.” Instead of crushing her, the experience was transforming. “It taught me to be humble, to endure hardships and difficulties, and to care about others,” she says. “Yiwei is extraordinary,” says Jack Barceló, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of International and Comparative Law. “She has self-possession, a powerful inner will, and sense of what’s right. But at the same time there’s a graciousness, friendliness, warmth, thoughtfulness, and a generosity of spirit.”
My parents always encouraged me to get more knowledge, to go for the highest education possible. — Yiwei Chang, J.D. ’86/J.S.D. ‘90
~ J u d i t h P r at t
Spring 2012
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