It seems like only yesterday that Domingo Acevedo, my colleague at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asked me whether I would be interested in serving on the Editorial Advisory Committee of International Legal Materials (ILM) since he was rotating off. I enthusiastically agreed since I’ve always thought of myself as an international lawyer first, and a human rights lawyer second, and this would give me the opportunity of having regular access to what was new and current in international law. Lucky for me almost a third of the documents we reviewed at ILM dealt with human rights, which is my specialty.

Since I never paid much attention to term limits, my tenure on the Board seemed like a life-time appointment, and I was surprised to learn a quarter of a century after I had been elected that it had come to an end (1996-2022). It was a rich experience, and I look forward to passing the torch to someone who I hope will enjoy it as much as I did.

Not only did I make some good friends through the ILM meetings, but I learned some things about other areas of international law. For me, personally, the most rewarding part of the experience was the decision to include “Intro Notes,” where members of the Board write introductory notes or recommend colleagues to write introductory notes for the cases or documents that are being presented. The Intro Notes gave us the opportunity to express why we thought the case or document should be included and why we considered it important. I think that gave us a more personal way to express ourselves and gave the reader an insight into why we chose the case or document presented.

For someone who was working in the inter-American system, reading cases from the other international human rights systems, recommended for publication by lawyers who worked in these systems, was very useful in prioritizing what to read amongst the myriad judgments that are published each year by these international bodies. 

I was privileged, personally, to write notes on the cases dealing with extraordinary renditions. Cases such as Abu-Zubaydah v. Lithuania (2018) before the European Court of Human Rights, and Djamel Ameziane v. U.S. (2020) before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, both cases dealing with extraordinary renditions and long-term detention in Guantanamo. These cases are significant historically and include many facts that are not generally known, not even in the legal community.

International Legal Materials serves a unique function in that it tries to cover the entire gamut of international law and not just certain specialties. It tries to cover private as well as public international law, but I must admit it tilts toward covering more public than private and it tries not to dip too deeply into what could be considered mainly European, Asian, African, or inter-American law, because that would verge on domestic and not qualify as being sufficiently international. It tries to publish everything from the International Court of Justice and that is because it is the International Court of Justice and deserves pride of place for being primus inter pares, even though I.C.J. documents are easily accessible elsewhere, and sometimes just publishes documents because they are fascinating to read and captured our imagination. Inclusivity is the goal, but readability and imagination make the publication worth reading.

In August 2022, ASIL is celebrating 60 years of International Legal Materials. This is the first in a series of blog posts about the anniversary. Visit the journal homepage here.

Christina M. Cerna – B.A., New York University; M.A., Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat, Munich, Germany; J.D., American U., LL.M., Columbia University, Mid-Career Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford University. She was Principal Human Rights Specialist for the OAS (1979-2012). She was seconded by the OAS to the UN Centre for Human Rights for two years to work on the 1993 UN World Conference on Human Rights. She is Adjunct Professor at Georgetown U. Law School since 2005 and active in ASIL and ABILA. She chaired ILA’s International Human Rights Law Committee (2008-2016) and currently co-chairs ILA’s Human Rights in Times of Emergency Committee (2017- present). She served on the ILM Advisory Board (1996-2022), the Board of AIUSA and as a consultant to ASEAN (2007-2014) re the creation of its human rights commission (2007-2014). She has written widely on international human rights law and been published in journals throughout the world.