Two lawyers receive ABA Morris I. Leibman Award in Law and National Security
The American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security is honoring lawyers Stephen Dycus and Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker with its Morris I. Leibman Award in Law and National Security.
The award, which recognizes lawyers who have demonstrated a sustained commitment and made exceptional contributions to the field of national security law, honors the memory of Morris I. Leibman, a distinguished lawyer and co-founder of the Standing Committee and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The awards will be announced during the 32nd Annual Review of the Field of National Security Law Conference, Nov. 17-18, at the Renaissance Washington Hotel.
Dycus is professor of law emeritus at Vermont Law School in South Royalton, Vermont. He is a founding architect of the academic discipline of national security law and lead author of casebooks “National Security Law” and “Counterterrorism Law,” now in their 7th and 4th editions respectively.
Dycus also co-authored “Soldiers on the Home Front: The Domestic Role of the American Military,” published by Harvard University Press in 2016, and is co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of National Security Law and Policy.
Dycus served on the advisory committee of the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security, is founding chair of the Association of American Law Schools section on national security law and was a member of the National Academies committee on cyber warfare. He is a member of the American Law Institute and served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy on the cleanup of nuclear weapons complexes.
Rindskopf Parker is a nonresident senior adviser with the Defending Democratic Institutions project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and dean emerita at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, California. Prior to becoming dean, Rindskopf Parker served as general counsel of the National Security Agency (1984-1989), principal deputy legal adviser at the Department of State (1989-1990) and general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency (1990-1995).
Rindskopf Parker was twice appointed to the Public Interest Declassification Board at the National Archives, first by President George W. Bush and reappointed by President Barack Obama, and was a member of the senior advisory group in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
After her time as CIA general counsel, Rindskopf Parker became general counsel of the 26-campus University of Wisconsin system. In 2002 she joined the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law as its eighth dean, where she helped create the Journal of National Security Law and Policy and helped establish a national security law section in the Association of American Law Schools.
Rindskopf Parker also has been a member of the board of trustees of the MITRE Corporation, a member of the executive board of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law and a member of the advisory board of the Reiss Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. Rindskopf Parker is a counselor to the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security, serving as its chair from 1998 to 2001.
The Standing Committee on Law and National Security is the oldest Standing Committee in the ABA. It has sustained a commitment to educating the Bar and public on national security issues. For additional information, visit www.americanbar.org/groups/law_national_security.
ABA Center for Human Rights awards Roosevelt Prize to EarthRights International, Human Rights Watch
The American Bar Association Center for Human Rights (CHR) will honor EarthRights International and Human Rights Watch with its 2022 Eleanor Roosevelt Prize for Global Human Rights Advancement during a reception next month at the historic Roosevelt House in New York City on December 8.
“The Center for Human Rights is proud to recognize EarthRights International and Human Rights Watch with the 2022 Eleanor Roosevelt Prize for their tremendous accomplishments in service of human rights around the world,” said Roula Allouch, chair of the ABA Center for Human Rights. “Their work, and steadfast dedication to it, are indispensable to achieving a just rule of law for all, and they are consistent with the tireless spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt, who is the center’s adopted patron saint and in whose honor the center established the prize.”
ABA President and past CHR Chair Deborah Enix-Ross observed that “human rights are the lifeblood of justice in the world, and those who dedicate their careers to the vindication of human rights therefore deserve special recognition by the legal profession. I look forward to celebrating this year’s Roosevelt honorees and their magnificent work on Dec. 8.”
EarthRights International is recognized for its record of transformative advocacy, from grassroots campaigns to landmark litigation, and securing justice for communities suffering human rights and environmental harms resulting from abusive corporate practices.
“We are honored to accept this award from the American Bar Association,” said Ka Hsaw Wa, executive director of EarthRights International. “For more than 25 years, EarthRights has partnered with Indigenous and frontline communities to challenge human rights and environmental abuses through our unique training, campaigning and legal programs. With global oppression rising and the climate crisis escalating, those in the legal field must join the fight and use the power of law to protect vulnerable communities.”
Human Rights Watch is recognized for its broad-ranging and influential advocacy in defense of human dignity worldwide.
“Eleanor Roosevelt played a foundational role in launching the modern international human rights movement,” said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Human Rights Watch is deeply honored to have our work acknowledged in her name. We especially welcome this recognition from the American Bar Association, given the pivotal role that so many lawyers in the United States play in promoting human rights and the rule of law around the world.”
With the blessing of the Roosevelt family, the Center in 2018 established the prize to recognize individuals and organizations having a positive, enduring and global impact in advancing the principles set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Eleanor Roosevelt championed, and which forms the bedrock of modern human rights law. Past honorees include former Nuremberg War Crimes Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Billie Jean King and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Reflecting its namesake, honorees need not be lawyers.
For additional information on the ABA Center for Human Rights, visit www.americanbar.org/groups/human_rights.
