California Air Resources Board in August 2011. Her colleague, Professor Timothy Malloy, who is the faculty director of the UCLA Sustainable Technology and Policy Program, an interdisciplinary collaboration between UCLA School of Law and the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, provided testimony on green chemistry regulations in December. He offered an essential perspective on the Safer Consumer Products Informal Draft Regulations for the California State Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials.
impacT Beyond The classroom UCLA Law has always enjoyed a reputation as a place where dynamic and engaged professors focus their prodigious talents on creating an unrivaled educational experience. Yet, as an extension of the work of the law school’s centers and program, faculty members are equally committed to achieving impact beyond the classroom. “Our faculty members are among the nation’s most eminent authorities across a wide range of legal areas,” Dean Moran says. It’s not simply that their ideas and opinions are in high demand, she observes; by virtue of their intellect and expertise, they are also strengthening the fabric of civic life. This year, Hiroshi Motomura, Susan Westerberg Prager professor of law, was the principal drafter of a letter to President Obama that highlighted several measures the President could take, under existing laws, to end the threat of deportation for students who might benefit from the DREAM Act. Signed by 89 immigration law professors from around the country, the letter provided President Obama with a compelling argument that it was within his authority to issue a reprieve for large groups of illegal immigrants. Just two weeks later, President
Rebel on the Run
UCLA Law students locate compound of Congolese militia leader wanted by the ICC When a group of students from the Sanela Diana Jenkins Human Rights Project accompanied Professor Richard Steinberg on a trip to the Democratic Republic of the
Congo this past spring, they never imagined their work would involve tracking one of Africa’s most notorious
warlords. Engaged in field research in the Eastern Congo, the group unexpectedly spotted Bosco Ntaganda,
also known as “the Terminator,” who is wanted by the
International Criminal Court (ICC) on war crimes charges and has long evaded capture.
While working in the town of Goma, Steinberg and his
students saw Ntaganda traveling on a major thoroughfare in a convoy armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, a mounted heavy caliber machine gun and soldiers wielding automatic weapons. The UCLA Law
group ultimately located his compound about 100 yards
from the Rwandan border. They then proceeded to obtain
clandestine video to document their discovery.
Professor Steinberg noted that their ability to home in
on the warlord’s base of operations so easily showed that “Ntaganda was living with impunity, and he did so while enriching himself through conflict minerals trade, injustices that continue to destabilize the Eastern Congo. If
our group from UCLA Law could stumble upon Ntaganda and locate his compound, then the Congolese govern-
ment and the intelligence services of Western countries had surely located him as well.”
The video obtained by the group was circulated widely
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Shortly there-
Professor Gary Blasi speaks at a press conference held when Valentini v. Shinseki was filed.
after, the Congolese government moved in on the compound and Ntaganda fled to the countryside, where he
and his militia are being actively pursued by Congolese government forces.
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