Fall 1999, 1

Professor Doug Cassel Elected to Hemispheric Justice Board Of Organization of American States

The Organization of American States (OAS) has elected Douglass Cassel, Director of the Center for International Human Rights of Northwestern University School of Law, to a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the newly established Justice Study Center for the Americas. Cassel was nominated for the post by the United States government. Attorney General Janet Reno wrote to her counterparts in the other 33 OAS governments urging them to vote for Cassel.

The new Center was created by decision of the Western Hemisphere heads of state at the Second Summit of the Americas in Santiago, Chile, in 1998. Its purpose is to facilitate training of judges, prosecutors, police and other justice officials throughout the Americas; to promote exchanges of information and technical cooperation; and to support reform and modernization of justice systems in the region.

Sixteen OAS member countries each nominated one candidate for the seven-member Board of the Center. In addition to Cassel, those elected include the Minister of Justice of Costa Rica; the former Ministers of Justice of Chile, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago; the President of the Judicial Council of Paraguay; and a distinguished law professor from the National University of Mexico.

he Board's first major task will be to recommend a country to serve as the permanent seat of the Center. Applications have been submitted by Argentina, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Uruguay. The United States government has committed $1 million to support the Center's initial activities.

Cassel, a specialist on human rights in Latin America, teaches international human rights law at Northwestern law school. As Director of the school's Center for International Human Rights, he is responsible for its research and publications, litigation and advocacy of human rights.

He has previously served as legal adviser to the United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, member of the U.S. delegation to the General Assembly of the Organization of American States ("OAS"), and consultant on the Inter-American Human Rights system to the OAS and the State Department. He writes and lectures widely on human rights in Latin America, and has conducted training programs for judges, prosecutors and public defenders from the hemisphere.

"If the fragile democratic transitions in Latin America are to succeed," commented Cassel, "their courts and police must inspire confidence in the rule of law. The challenge of achieving effective and transparent systems of justice is vital to the progress of the region."

His recommendations for the initial priorities of the new Center are to focus on ways to combat the wave of violent crime sweeping the region, while respecting human rights, and on endemic issues of corruption in the administration of justice.