One year after the onset of major combat operations in Iraq and as the Iraqi Governing Council struggles over an interim constitution for the country, reconstruction efforts there and elsewhere will be the focus of a major symposium at the University of California, Davis, on Friday, March 12. The event is free and open to the public.

"It's a good time to take stock of reconstruction efforts in Iraq and other attempts at nation-building throughout the world," says law professor Diane Marie Amann, an authority on international law and human rights and faculty adviser to the symposium.

"Rethinking Reconstruction After Iraq," presented by the School of Law's Journal of International Law & Policy, will draw together speakers distinguished for their scholarship and experience working on reconstruction issues. They range from members of a U.S. Justice Department mission to Iraq and the U.N. Compensation Commission to the chief of staff for the U.S. Trade and Development Agency and a professor who served as U.S. deputy assistant attorney general in the Bush administration following the Sept. 11 attacks.

One of four sessions will explore safety and security issues ranging from safety for Baghdad residents to the implications of the last year's events for the international security system, particularly the U.N. Security Council. Another will look at the role of law and a constitution in rebuilding societies after conflict. In a third, reparations for the atrocities of genocide will be among the financial and social implications of reconstruction to be discussed.

An open discussion among the panelists and audience will highlight the ethical issues of reconstruction -- from the costs of ignoring reconstruction in places like Afghanistan to the problems of modern health care meeting with local custom. "One of the things that comes with these projects is cultural clashes," says Amann.

Tamara Darweesh, who graduated from the law school in 2000, is expected to offer a personal perspective on reconstruction in Iraq. The daughter of Iraqi academics who fled Saddam Hussein's regime, she was a member of 2003 U.S. mission to Iraq that aimed to establish a court system there.

Following an introduction at 9 a.m., the program will proceed as follows:

9:15 a.m. Peace and Security

• David Caron, a UC Berkeley law professor and a member of the U.N. Compensation Commission
• Tamara Darweesh, member of a U.S. Justice Department mission to Iraq
• James C. O'Brien, principal of the Albright Group and former senior special adviser to the secretary of state
• moderated by Amann

10:45 a.m. Break

11 a.m. Liberty and Justice

• Karima Bennoune, a law professor at Rutgers University, Newark, and a former legal adviser to Amnesty International
• Bartram Brown, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law now visiting at Lauterpacht Center at Cambridge University
• Barry Portman, a federal public defender in San Francisco and a member of a U.S. Justice Department mission to Iraq
• John C. Yoo, a law professor at Berkeley and former U.S. deputy assistant attorney general
• moderated by Cruz Reynoso a law professor at UC Davis and vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

12:30 p.m. Break

1:30 p.m. Economy and Society

• Carl B. Kress, chief of staff and senior adviser to the director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency
• Naomi Roht-Arriaza, professor of law at Hastings College of Law
• William Schabas, director of the Irish Center for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and member of the Sierra Leone Truth Commission
• moderated by Andrea K. Bjorklund, a UC Davis law professor and formerly attorney-adviser to the U.S. State Department and senior counsel to the U.S. Trade Commission

3 p.m. Break

3:15 p.m. Rhetoric and Ethics

• Beth Van Schaack, a professor of law at Santa Clara University, will moderate a discussion about ethical issues including engaging in or refraining from reconstruction, transitional justice and transplantation of the rule of law.

4:15 p.m. Concluding Remarks and Reception

The symposium has the backing of several high-profile law associations. Designated a regional meeting for the American Society of International Law and the American branch of the International Law Association, the symposium is also sponsored by the American national section of the International Association of Penal Law and the international human rights section of the Bar Association of San Francisco.

All sessions will be held in the Moot Court Room of King Hall, home of the law school.

For more information, visit the symposium's Web site at http://www.law.ucdavis.edu/jilp/2004symposium.htm.