By
Donald Morton, Alumni Coordinator
STUDENTS
AT ISA have always considered fairness
for all to be a great good, at
bottom a political judgment! Perhaps
that is why so many of our alumni have
gone on to study law or government and
into careers supportive of civil society.
ISA continues to encourage the academic
environment which leads so many of our
alumni to follow this career path. Some
of those careers are highlighted here....
Setting
the tone for future civic careers
On
February 5, 1999, Jeff Margevich, '99
introduced United States Supreme
Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
to an Upper School Assembly
in ISA's World Theatre.
In
her address, entitled "Affirmative Action:
An International Human Rights Dialogue," Justice
Ginsburg distinguished between
civil and political rights on the one
hand and economic and social
rights on the other.
She
then proceeded to describe, in a comprehensive
and scholarly way, the legal basis of
equal rights in some fundamental
documents: the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights of
1948, the 1965 Covenant on the Elimination
of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination, and the 1979 Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination Against Women.
She
turned finally to the extensive history
of affirmative action in the United
States, of "reservations" as the matter
is referred to in India, and
of "positive action" as the Europeans
call it. Revealing a profound awareness
of her youthful international audience,
the Associate Justice referred
appreciatively to "school bodies that
are diverse by race, religion,
national origin and, as in this school,
language," saying that multiculturalism
adds "much richness to the educational
experience."
"World
Peace - Inner Peace: Healing Self,
the Earth and Others"
On
May 22, 1999 ISA hosted the centennial
World Peace Conference's extension
sessions on envisioning future learning.
Led
by Michael Westberg,
ISA's children contributed to the day's
Musical Opening in ISA's
World Theatre, and children presented
a statement on "Learning to Create
Cultures of Peace and Nonviolence." Illness
prevented Lower School
Head Lesley Snowball from leading a workshop
on International Schools
Peace Projects. Irene van Lippe-Biesterfeld &emdash;
once an ISA parent &emdash;
and Robert Muller, an ISA commencement
speaker and winner of the UNESCO
Peace Prize for his work on a world core
curriculum, contributed to
the Wisdom Panel that closed the conference.
| The
Continuing Alumni Challenge |
Are
not liberty and modern civilization outcomes
of the rule of law based
on the norm of justice? And have the
ancient orders of birth &emdash; of family,
clan, tribe and ethnic nation &emdash;
not yielded in modern times to demo-cratically
constituted civil societies ruled by
law, though not yet perfectly
or universally? Well then, education
for international understanding
in the global society of the future fosters
respect for human
similarities and differences while in
school, and career commitments
to building a fairer world after graduation.
• Bernard
Feord, '79 delivered
the valedictorian's address for his
class at ISA, then studied political
science at George Washington University
and law at the University of Virginia.
Today he practices law in
Virginia.
• Hiromi
Machida Mishina, '82 majored
in international law and communi-cation
at Tokyo's International Christian
University. She has made
her career in international marketing,
media and promotions for a major
Japanese firm.
• Rajiv
Menon, '82 was
called to the Bar in 1993. He is currently
a member of
2 Garden Court chambers, a progressive
chambers of 60 barristers committed
to social justice and civil liberties.
Earlier Rajiv worked for
three years for an anti-racist campaigning
organization called Newham
Monitoring Project, dealing personally
with some two hundred cases
of racially inspired violence in London's
East End. A Gandhi-like opponent
of racism, Rajiv specializes today
in criminal defence and civil
actions against the police. He is also
involved in inquests and Caribbean
death penalty appeals. "After some
initial reservations about the
reactionary and elitist British Bar," Rajiv
wrote, "I must admit that
I have grown to love the job."
• John
Hennessey-Niland, '82 studied
at Tufts University and Fletcher Law School
before going on to become a US State
Department Expert-on-Mission to
the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in
The Hague. John made several investigative
trips to the former Yugoslavia … and
was meeting with the Serbian
mayor of Banja Luka when all international
personnel were evacuated:
He spent the rest of his mission "holed
up living in a container
on a forward American base, under orders
not to leave because of
the threat of being seized as a Serbian
hostage." He likened the conditions
to the TV show M.A.S.H. In January
1997, John ended his service
to the UN and "moved over to the Economic
Section at the American
Embassy." |
• Yoko
Yamabe, '84 completed
a degree in law at Kyoto University before becoming
a formative force with Blues Interactions
Inc., P-Vine Records, the
company that has brought black American
music to Japan. Yoko was elected
president of ISA's Tokyo Alumni Club
when it was established in April
1996.
• J.
F. R. Boddens Hosang, '85 is
a Senior Legal Policy Adviser at the Netherlands
Ministry of Defense Directorate of
Legal Affairs in the Hague,
where his specialties include the laws
of war and the laws of naval
operations. Hans has been a guest lecturer,
too, since 1996, at several
academic institutions including the
Netherlands Institute for International
Relations "Clingendael" (The Hague);
the (NATO) Netherlands
Naval Operations School (Den Helder);
and the Netherlands Defense
College (Rijswijk). Recently he wrote
the Alumni Office to say that "I
still look back on my days at ISA as
one of the most enjoyable times
in my life and the foundation on which
my later success in life was
based. In the words of Charles Lamb:
'I have had playmates, I have had
companions / In my days of childhood,
in my joyful school-days.'" Hans
attained his Bachelor of Law (LL.B.)
degree at Utrecht University in
1987 and the Master of Law (LL.M.)
in International Law at the same university
in 1991. Hans has participated in a
number of governmental, academic
and military working groups and think
tanks. In 1996 -1997 he was
a member of the NATO Military Committee
working group on Rules of Engagement
and Operational Law, and a member of
the Dutch Ministry of Justice
Task Force on Maritime Law Enforcement
and Drug Interdiction.
• Ferdinand
Mason, '85 completed
his degree in private and international law
at the Free University in Amsterdam
in the early nineties and was also
admitted to the bar in Belgium. Ferdinand
is a Senior Associate of the
prestigious Amsterdam law firm Boekel
de Nerée, where as member of the
corporate and commercial department
he is specifically responsible for
Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate
Finance. Ferdinand and Alma Divanovich
'85, his life companion since high
school, are one of ISA's devoted
Romeo and Juliet couples.
• Angela
Whetstone Glode (Left in 1985 after
grade 11) graduated
from the University
of Texas at Austin with a BA in government.
Since 1992 she has
worked for United Way in Miami and
Omaha. "I am in development rather
that direct service," she writes, "but
my ability to raise money determines
what kind of direct services we can
provide. We raise approximately
$18 million dollars a year for the
Omaha area. We fund only
health and human service organizations
that provide things like food,
shelter and housing, health care, day
and after school care, family
counseling and emergency services.
It's a wonderful job - and the
best part about it is visiting the
agencies we support and seeing the
programs in action. I may not be on
the front line, but I'm making sure
the front line can be there."
• Emma
Killick, '89 graduated
from the University of Southern California (USC)
in Hotel & Management as valedictorian
of her class before deciding
to study law at Berkeley. Emma writes: "My
law studies at Berkeley
are long over - I graduated in May
of 1997. I had a wonderful experience
at school - really loved it. Now I
am practicing in Los Angeles
at the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis
and Pogue. They have ten offices
in the US and ten offices in other
countries. I do mostly general
litigation, which is large scale corporate
litigation, as well as
some antitrust work."
• Nick
Eddy (Left in 1989 after grade 11) completed
a double major degree in
Political Science and Italian at the
University of Auckland in 1993. Then,
having graduated from the Royal New
Zealand Police College in 1994,
Nick joined specialist uniformed and
undercover teams tracking down
serial offenders and armed criminals.
He was wounded in the line of duty.
He now also holds a Master's degree
in Italian and Human Resource Management.
Nick recently completed a work assignment
with the United Nations
investigating war crime atrocities
in Rwanda. "ISA was an incredible
educational experience….The study
of languages in combination with
social sciences is in great demand.
The next millennium," Nick writes, "is
going to be in desperate need of thinkers
and those skilled in
diplomacy."
• Joseph
N. Femenella, '92 graduated
from Villanova University in Pennsylvania
in 1996 with a major in Political Science.
He served a one-semester
internship in the Philadelphia District
Attorney's Office and
then worked for Lucent Technologies
for a year before entering The George
Washington University Law School. "Right
now I am focusing on International
Law, for obvious reasons. I received
my certificate in European
Law this past summer (1998) while attending
classes at the University
of Amsterdam. I am on our school's
Trial Court Board, and have
worked and helped draft a law review
article for the Ethics and Public
Policy Center, which is a think tank
here in DC."
• Kazuhiro
Shimizu (Left in 1988 after grade 11) graduated
from an international
high school in London, studied economics
at the University of
Southern California, and completed
law school at New York University in
1996. He is the only Japanese lawyer
practicing in Atlanta, Georgia.
• Shiho
Isobe, '93 studied
environmental law and social science
at Japan's national
Aichi University of Education.
Among
those who have studied law at the University
of Leiden are Edwin
L Herskovic, '92; Sibylle
Herskovic, '95; Jantine Blüm
(Left in 1992 after grade 9);
and Jeroen
Vossenberg, '97.
Jeroen was awarded Leiden's prestigious "Legatum
Böchelmannium" after earning the
best grades in his class
and completing the propadeuse cum laude.
Among those who have studied
law, for a while at least, at the University
of Amsterdam are Macha
Le Poole, '89; Anna
Kuyumcuoglu, '92,
who was interested in women's
rights; Pavle
Bojkovski, '92 (www.wetten.nu);
and Fritzi
Blumberg, '93 whose
field is Dutch Private Law.
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A
Welcome from our Alumni Coordinator Don Morton
