News Releases
Supreme Court Lecture to look at international law
Friday, October 20, 2006
The foundations of international law will be explored in the Valparaiso University School of Law’s annual Indiana Supreme Court Lecture.
José A. Cabranes, a judge with the United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit since 1994, will speak on “International Law By Consent of the Governed” at 4 p.m. Nov. 2 in Wesemann Hall on campus. The lecture is free and open to the public, and will be followed by a reception.
Judge Cabranes will discuss how international law rests on the well-established, universal practices of sovereign nations in their relations with one another and threats to this basic principle of consent.
“If customary international law becomes wholly detached from the idea of consent by the governed, it risks losing legitimacy,” Judge Cabranes says.
Judge Cabranes was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, before moving to New York City at the age of 5. He was the first Puerto Rican appointed to the federal bench in the continental U.S. in 1979 and previously had served as special counsel to the governor of Puerto Rico and head of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s office in Washington, D.C.
He graduated from Yale Law School and is author of “Citizenship and the American Empire” and “Fear of Judging: Sentencing Guidelines in the Federal Courts,” which received the Certificate of Merit from the American Bar Association. His scholarly articles have been published in British and American law journals and he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The lecture is co-sponsored by the VU School of Law and the Indiana Supreme Court. The annual Indiana Supreme Court Lectures are made possible by the generous support of the Indiana Supreme Court. The court’s justices include Robert D. Rucker, a graduate of the VU School of Law.
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