Photo by Chelsea Monks, Black Hills National Forest (Black Hills National Forest at forestphotos.com) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
“Deane”, my California friends ask me, “Deane, how could you move to Tennessee and leave us? Isn’t Tennessee full of hate groups, Drumpf supporters, confederate flag wavers, busts of Nathan Bedford Forrest, and insufferable country music?" Well, it’s not all true, but I power through the rough stuff, and thrive like a weed growing in the cracks of desolate rock, and what makes it worthwhile is this: supporting the International Law practice of my students and colleagues, for instance, Professor Michael Newton.
Most recently, Newton has published, How the International Criminal Court Threatens Treaty Norms, an article that questions the legal foundations of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Back in June of 2015, I got an email from Newton. The Subject line read: “you ready for an adventure” and in the body, he explained that he wanted me to track down the origins of a Roman law term, its development and subsequent usage, and a good citation. The phrase was “nemo plus iuris transferre potest quam ipse habet,” and was I ready for an adventure? My response, “Born ready. What’s your deadline?”
Over the next few weeks, I researched ancient texts, with occasional assistance from the Vanderbilt University’s Classics Librarian, Ramona Romero. Ultimately, because Vanderbilt Libraries have such vast resources, I was able to provide Newton with my expert analysis of the sources, which he then paraphrased in his footnotes, expressing his “deep appreciation” for my work, on the first page of the article, much to my delight. While I don’t do this for the praise, I will say that seeing my expertise valued and having enthusiastic and respectful communications with Newton, definitely made this project more fun for me and stoked my own enthusiasm.
Newton’s mighty leadership skills were reflected in the particular choice of words that he used when encouraging me, words like, “This is great!!”, “this is GOLD” and my personal favourite, “I like your grit. You got spirit…” Coming from a former Senior Advisor to the United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, and a highly decorated military leader, those words keep me going on days when I feel like, “just” a librarian.
This is the most recent of three years’ of providing support for Newton’s scholarship that included, researching proportionality for his 2014 book, Proportionality in international law and researching piracy, a topic that I was already quite interested in, for his 2015 book, Prosecuting maritime piracy : Domestic solutions to international crimes.
In the excruciatingly formal legal industry, Newton meets me where I like to operate, in a world where challenging equals fun, irreverence is a space for connection, and unnecessary formality is to be laughed at while we get real work done. In Newton’s International Law Practice Lab, I taught his foreign & U.S. law students how to research International Law so that they could complete real world tasks for real clients. After teaching in the International Law Practice Lab almost twenty times in a year, Newton took over teaching the research aspect of this course as other time intensive work obligations prevented me from participating in his course as an embedded librarian. At his behest, I left him and his students with ten two-page handouts on ten different topics in legal research, and because I’m an overachiever, I also created this series of online International Law research guides.
When I ran my first draft of this short article past Newton, he offered this additional bit of information, on April 21st, he taught the last Practice Lab class of the semester. Even though I had not physically entered his class this year, when he asked his students to describe one of their most important lessons learned from each other and from the course, one student - referring to me - said, "I've learned that the International Law librarian is an unbelievable resource."
So when people ask me what I do, I help International Law scholars and practitioners, like Professor Michael Newton, Professor Ingrid Wuerth and Professor Daniel Gervais, to change the world, one legal argument at a time. I help foreign lawyers and judges to understand the U.S. legal system and to bring this new knowledge back to their home countries. I do it by researching, teaching and creating online research guides and interactive tutorials. I do it as a single Black, ivy league-educated, female-presenting, immigrant, working at the 16th best law school in the country, in a Southern city where segregation and racism are alive and well.
When I can, I do my part to change the unfortunate aspects of Southern culture in some small way, or at least to help my students and patrons of color to feel supported, by writing, speaking and helping to organize the Vanderbilt University Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration. But my bread and butter is doing and teaching legal research as a law librarian. Every day when I come in to work, I am present and ready to do my part to change the world as only a Foreign & International Law Librarian can.
Flowers, given to me by an African-American patron, to show her appreciation for my research assistance.
Photo courtesy, Associate Director for Library Services & Lecturer in Law, Mary Miles Prince.
