Milena Sterio, J.D. – Assistant Professor Cleveland Marshall College of Law

Gillian Weiss, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University

Friday March 6, 2009
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Crawford Hall – Room 9
Inamori Center
Case Western Reserve University

Dear Colleagues,

A few years ago, the objects of “piracy” seemed to have shifted from galleons to copyright.  Music, software, and other “content” are still being stolen, but so are actual ships, oil, and tanks – not to say hostages.  The U.S. Navy, European Union, Russia, China, and India all have warships in the Indian Ocean seeking to defend maritime traffic against pirates based mainly in Somalia.  But there are other hotspots, such as the Straits of Malacca and the coast of Nigeria.

For our discussion we’ve gathered Professor Sterio, an expert on international law including war crimes; Professor Weiss, an historian and expert on the Barbary Pirates; and as moderator Professor Ken Grundy, an expert on African politics (among many other matters).

As usual, we will gather in Room 9 of the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence, on the lower level of Crawford Hall, for free cookies, beverages, and brown bag lunch.

Best regards,
Joe White

About Our Guest

Professor Maria Sterio earned her law degree, magna cum laude, from Cornell Law School in 2002. At Cornell, she was Order of the Coif, general editor of the Cornell International Law Journal and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 2003, she earned a master’s degree, cum laude, in Private International Law from the University Paris I-Pantheon-Sorbonne; in 2002, she earned a Maitrise en droit franco-americain cum laude, also from the Sorbonne. Her undergraduate degree, summa cum laude, in Political Science and French Literature is from Rutgers College, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Before joining the Cleveland-Marshall faculty, she was an associate in the New York City firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton and an Adjunct Law Professor at Cornell, where she taught in the International War Crimes Clinic. She has published in the Connecticut International Law Journal, the Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law, the Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, the Florida Journal of International Law, and the UC Davis of International Law and Policy.

Gillian Weiss is Assistant Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University.  A graduate of Princeton and Stanford, she has received numerous fellowships for her research on North African corsairs and French captives in the sixteenth- to nineteenth-century Mediterranean.  Her book, Back from Barbary: Mediterranean Slavery and the Rise of France, is currently under review.  Professor Weiss teaches courses on various aspects of early modern European history, France and the Muslim world, and comparative slavery.

Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

March 20: “How International Terrorism is Financed and What Can Be Done About It,” Richard Gordon, Associate Professor of Law.

March 27: Promise and Problems of Alternative Dispute Resolution. Bill Leatherberry, Professor of Law , CWRU.

April 3: TBA

April 10: Exonerating the Innocent: The Impact of DNA Evidence. Paul Gianelli, Weatherhead Professor of Law, CWRU.

April 17: CWRU Students Report on the Election in El Salvador.

April 24: TBA.

The Friday Lunch discussions are held on the lower (ground) level of Crawford Hall. Visitors with mobility issues may find it easiest to take advantage of special arrangements we have made. On most Fridays, a few parking spaces in the V.I.P. lot in between Crawford Hall and Amasa Stone Chapel are held for participants in the lunch discussion.

Visitors then can avoid walking up the hill to the first floor of Crawford by entering the building on the ground level, through the garage area under the building. The further door on the left in that garage will be left unlocked during the period before the Friday lunch. On occasion, parking will be unavailable because of other university events.

For more information about these and other Center for Policy Studies programs, please see http://policy.case.edu.