Friday, March 18, 2005
- Seminar: "LANDELIJKE AMERIKANISTENDAG", Netherlands American Studies Association (NASA). Organized by UvA.
I atttended the following events: the keynote lecture (see the program below), workshop II, workshop IV and the final discussion panel. These sessions were all chaired by Prof. Ruud Janssens. Workshop II started with an excellent presentation by Sandor Loeffen (RU) on "Guantánamo Bay Detainees: International and US Law in the Age of Terrorism."
Sandor gave a legal perspective on the issue; he presented the United States Supreme Court ruling of June 30, 2004, as a vivid illustration of the principle of the separation of powers (*). During the Q&A session, I asked him about the dismail failure of the same principle in early 1942, when more than a hundred-and- ten thousand Japanese-Americans were detained in concentration camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor (**).
Fleur Ravensbergen (RU) followed with an account of her participation in United Nations simulation program at Harvard University. Frans van Nijnatten closed the session with his very interesting comments on "Jimmy Carter, Politician".
Workshop IV included three well-conducted presentations: (a) "Dutch-American military and nuclear relations" by Rienk Terpstra (RSC/UU); (b) "Kissinger and Metternich: is the historical parallel valid?" by Beerd Beukenhorst (UvA); (c) "The Dutch envoy van Polanen and the Republican experiment in the United States, 1796-1802" by Lennart van Oudheudsen.
The seminar was conducted in Dutch. Although I had a hard time understading each and every point made by the speakers, I think I was able to capture the essence of the presentations. I asked Beerd about an interesting paradox involving Metternich, Kissinger and ... Charles de Gaulle (about whom I am writing my MA thesis). In the international arena, all of them proved extremely skillful at balancing foreign powers against each other. However, none of them welcomed any division of power ... at home! Arguably, this led (eventually) to their downfall.
(*) The rulings can be read here, here and here.
(**) See the description of the Japanese internment in Conrad Black. Roosevelt. Champion of Freedom. New York: Public Affairs, 2003.
I atttended the following events: the keynote lecture (see the program below), workshop II, workshop IV and the final discussion panel. These sessions were all chaired by Prof. Ruud Janssens. Workshop II started with an excellent presentation by Sandor Loeffen (RU) on "Guantánamo Bay Detainees: International and US Law in the Age of Terrorism."
Sandor gave a legal perspective on the issue; he presented the United States Supreme Court ruling of June 30, 2004, as a vivid illustration of the principle of the separation of powers (*). During the Q&A session, I asked him about the dismail failure of the same principle in early 1942, when more than a hundred-and- ten thousand Japanese-Americans were detained in concentration camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor (**).
Fleur Ravensbergen (RU) followed with an account of her participation in United Nations simulation program at Harvard University. Frans van Nijnatten closed the session with his very interesting comments on "Jimmy Carter, Politician".
Workshop IV included three well-conducted presentations: (a) "Dutch-American military and nuclear relations" by Rienk Terpstra (RSC/UU); (b) "Kissinger and Metternich: is the historical parallel valid?" by Beerd Beukenhorst (UvA); (c) "The Dutch envoy van Polanen and the Republican experiment in the United States, 1796-1802" by Lennart van Oudheudsen.
The seminar was conducted in Dutch. Although I had a hard time understading each and every point made by the speakers, I think I was able to capture the essence of the presentations. I asked Beerd about an interesting paradox involving Metternich, Kissinger and ... Charles de Gaulle (about whom I am writing my MA thesis). In the international arena, all of them proved extremely skillful at balancing foreign powers against each other. However, none of them welcomed any division of power ... at home! Arguably, this led (eventually) to their downfall.
(*) The rulings can be read here, here and here.
(**) See the description of the Japanese internment in Conrad Black. Roosevelt. Champion of Freedom. New York: Public Affairs, 2003.
# posted by Agustin @ 8:47 PM 
