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  Exile or Extinction: the Assyrian Genocide from 1915 to 2015

  Hannibal Travis

  For a brief period, the attention of the international community has focused once again on the plight of religious minorities in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. In particular, the abductions and massacres of Yezidis and Assyrians in the Sinjar, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Baghdad, and Hasakah regions in 2007–2015 raised questions about the prevention of genocide. This book, while principally analyzing the Assyrian genocide of 1914–1925 and its implications for the culture and politics of the region, also raises broader questions concerning the future of religious diversity in the Middle East. It gathers and analyzes the findings of a broad spectrum of historical and scholarly works on Christian identities in the Middle East, genocide studies, international law, and the politics of the late Ottoman Empire, as well as the politics of the Ottomans' British and Russian rivals for power in western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean basin.

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  Introduction : The Assyrian Genocide Across History: Collective Memory, Legal Theory, and Power Politics

  Hannibal Travis

  For a brief period, the attention of the international community has focused once again on the plight of religious minorities in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. In particular, the abductions and massacres of Yezidis and Assyrians in the Sinjar, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Baghdad, and Hasakah regions in 2007–2015 raised questions about the prevention of genocide. This book, while principally analyzing the Assyrian genocide of 1914–1925 and its implications for the culture and politics of the region, also raises broader questions concerning the future of religious diversity in the Middle East. It gathers and analyzes the findings of a broad spectrum of historical and scholarly works on Christian identities in the Middle East, genocide studies, international law, and the politics of the late Ottoman Empire, as well as the politics of the Ottomans' British and Russian rivals for power in western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean basin.

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  Understanding Civil Rights Litigation

  Howard Wasserman

  This student-focused treatise provides a concise, accessible, comprehensive, and readable overview of the doctrine, policy, history, and theory of civil rights and constitutional litigation under Section 1983 and its Bivens federal counterpart. The book is written for courses on Civil Rights Litigation and Federal Courts; it can function as a primary assignment, as an assigned or recommended case and statutory supplement to a casebook or case materials, and as an additional study guide for students wanting additional background, context, and synthesis of the material.

  The new edition:

  • Covers all aspects of civil rights and constitutional litigation, including the history of civil rights legislation in the United States; the substantive elements of Section 1983 and Bivenscauses of action; individual immunity defenses; governmental liability and immunity; procedural and jurisdictional hurdles; abstention; and remedies.
  • Covers doctrinal changes from the Supreme Court since the previous edition, including on Bivens actions, individual officer immunity, abstention, and the scope of injunctive relief.
  • Discusses recent nationwide litigation campaigns over marriage equality and immigration policies to illustrate how plaintiffs and governments litigate these issues.
  • Includes appendices containing the United States Constitution, Emancipation Proclamation, and selected substantive, jurisdictional, and procedural federal statutes that regularly are involved in civil rights and constitutional litigation.
  • All topics and sub-topics include “Puzzles,” short problems (drawn from lawsuits and recent lower-court decisions) for use in class discussions and for student study and review.

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  Patriarchy, Not Hierarchy: Rethinking the Effect of Cultural Attitudes in Acquaintance Rape Cases

  Eric R. Carpenter

  Do certain people view acquaintance rape cases in ways that favor the man? The answer to that question is important. If certain people do, and those people form a disproportionately large percentage of the people in the institutions that process these cases, then those institutions may process these cases in ways that favor the man. In 2010, Dan Kahan published Culture, Cognition, and Consent, a study on how people evaluate a dorm room rape scenario. He found that those who endorsed a stratified, hierarchical social order were more likely to find that the man should not be found guilty of rape. If Kahan is right, radical change may be necessary. The institutions responsible for handling sexual assault complaints – law enforcement communities, the military, and university and college administrations – are stratified and hierarchical, and are likely over-populated by people who are attracted to hierarchical institutions and who hold hierarchical world views. These institutions may need to be overhauled – or even replaced. However, the study has a serious methodological flaw: it uses the Hierarchy-Egalitarianism Scale to measure those hierarchical world views, and as this article demonstrates, this scale has reliability and validity issues. This article then applies a different methodology to the underlying data and shows that patriarchy, not hierarchy, explains the differences in guilt perceptions. This more accurate understanding of Kahan’s data carries important policy implications. Rather than radical change, targeted training that addresses inaccurate rape beliefs may be enough to ensure accurate processing of these cases.

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  From Bandung 1955 to Bangladesh 1971: Postcolonial Self- Determination and Third World Failures in South Asia

  Cyra Akila Choudhury

  This chapter examines the birth of a Third World and its fantasy of a different world order reflected in the Bandung principles through the lens of the independence struggle of Bangladesh. The chapter argues that the internal social, political and legal subordination of the Bengali majority population within Pakistan inevitably led to the breach of the principles by two of the most significant players at Bandung. The movement and principles were at odds with human rights obligations and toothless in the face of a humanitarian crisis. As this chapter will argue, the Bangladesh conflict of 1971 showed that contrary to Bandung’s assumption, the Third World state was not its people, and that state was not able to withstand the pressures of Cold War geopolitics or guarantee justice to its own people. The dominant responses to intrastate human rights abuses in the wake of the failure of Bandung and the limited success of NAM are all too familiar — military intervention under the color of humanitarian law to cope with the problem of internal conflict or non-interference and the acceptance of the killing of large numbers of civilians.

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  National and Transnational Security Regimes: South Asia

  Cyra Akila Choudhury

  With the rise of the Global War on Terror (GWoT) and the radicalization of Muslim communities, there has been an increase in surveillance, detentions, torture, militarization, and security technologies, tied to controlling political dissent, “terrorism,” and immigration. For many Muslims, men and women, ordinary activities (e.g. religious gatherings, religious speech and debate, and travel for work or pleasure) have become laden with the possibility of misconstruction, leading to serious criminal consequences. For the most part, reports of GWoT regulation have focused on Muslim men, who are the most likely to be targeted as terrorists. Increasingly, though, women in various Muslim-majority countries and the West are also participating in terrorism and are consequently also targeted. But in South Asia, the more serious gendered effects of national and transnational security regimes are a consequence not of participation in terrorism but rather of women’s families and communities. In other words, women are far more likely to be caught up in the GWoT and the regulation of the security state through their relationships and membership in Muslim communities. Muslim women have become political prisoners for resisting the GWoT; they have lost male support and become single mothers because of detention of their menfolk; and they have become organizers working to counter the suppression of political and human rights to resist the encroachments of the security state.

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  Formalizing Property in Latin America

  Jorge L. Esquirol

  Comparative Property Law provides a comprehensive treatment of property law from a comparative and global perspective. The contributors, who are leading experts in their fields, cover both classical and new subjects, including the transfer of property, the public-private divide in property law, water and forest laws, and the property rights of aboriginal peoples. This Handbook maps the structure and the dynamics of property law in the contemporary world and will be an invaluable reference for researchers working in all domains of property law.

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  LexisNexis Practice Guide: Florida Criminal Law, 2017 Edition

  H. Scott Fingerhut

  The LexisNexis Practice Guide: Florida Criminal Practice and Procedure gives you step-by-step guidance on the many procedural issues and topics relevant to Florida criminal practice and quickly points you to LexisNexis resources that help you build your case. With its concise writing style, streamlined chapter format, abundance of checklists and forms, multitude of references to leading and related cases, cross references to relevant analytical content, and extensive and authoritative guidance from a consultative board of experienced Florida practitioners and judges, you'll find more of everything that makes a practice guide valuable and easy for you to use.

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  Prudential Regulation in the Age of Internal Models

  Jose M. Gabilondo

  Some of the most significant changes in banking law since tl1e global financial crisis involve attempts to make banks more financially stable through more rigorous requirements about how they finance their lending and investment activities. Central to this is the growing use of quantitative models by banks and their regulators to conduct financial war games that simulate how a bank would fare under adverse market conditions. These models - known as "internal models" because they are often proprietary and non-public - attempt to simulate how future states of the market would impact a bank's financial structure, in particular its ability to absorb losses without interrupting operations. Regulators first approved these internal models in the 1990s to track some of the risks in bank investments held for trading. Since then, regulators have authorized model-based approaches for a wider range of financial risks - including credit and liquidity risks - and for some nonbank financial entities, like broker-dealers. Today, many banks use these models to comply with prudential regulation about safety and soundness.

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  Globalization: Debunking the Myths, 3d ed.

  Lui Hebron and John F. Stack Jr.

  Now in a fully revised and updated edition, this balanced and clearly written text explores globalization and its impact from economic, political, social, environmental, and cultural perspectives. Providing a framework and platform for student learning, the book gives readers the tools to unravel the complexities of globalization in all its facets. Lui Hebron and John Stack note that as a hot-button term, globalization is used to describe any number of changes within, among, and between societies and states. Their goal is to reduce the noise engulfing debates and interpretations of one of the most dynamic, contested, applauded, and disparaged phenomena of the twenty-first century. Arguing that current assessments—both positive and negative—of globalization are overblown, the authors treat the dramatically changing landscapes of world politics as less a revolution than an evolution of already established structures and patterns of transnational relations. They trace how globalization has affected individuals, societies, states, and intergovernmental and supranational organizations. Making sense of a world seemingly smaller and incomprehensibly larger, simultaneously centralizing and fragmenting, Globalization: Debunking the Myths offers both an indispensable introduction for undergraduates and a concise review for more advanced students.

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  The African Union, the Security Council and the International Criminal Court,

  Charles Chernor Jalloh

  Africa has been at the forefront of contemporary global efforts towards ensuring greater accountability for international crimes. But the continent's early embrace of international criminal justice seems to be taking a new turn with the recent resistance from some African states claiming that the emerging system of international criminal law represents a new form of imperialism masquerading as international rule of law.
  
  This book analyses the relationship and tensions between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and Africa. It traces the origins of the confrontation between African governments, both acting individually and within the framework of the African Union, and the permanent Hague-based ICC. Leading commentators offer valuable insights on the core legal and political issues that have confused the relationship between the two sides and expose the uneasy interaction between international law and international politics. They offer suggestions on how best to continue the fight against impunity, using national, ICC, and regional justice mechanisms, while taking into principled account the views and interests of African States.

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  The Distinction between 'International' and 'Transnational' Crimes in the African Criminal Court

  Charles Chernor Jalloh

  The boundaries between international crimes and transnational crimes are blurring. Should prosecution and trial of transnational crimes be transferred from national to international jurisdictions? Or should criminal law repression in respect of such crimes remain the prerogative of the state? Cutting-edge contributions in this book demonstrate that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ answer to these questions.
  
  Addressing the distinctions and commonalities of transnational and international crimes, renowned contributors discuss the implications of this relationship in the realm of law enforcement. This book critically reflects on the connection between the ‘core crimes’ of the International Criminal Court, namely; war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, aggression, and several newly emerging transnational crimes. In view of this gradual merger of the categories, one of the major questions is whether the distinction in legal regime is still warranted. Significantly, the human rights consequences of transnational criminal law enforcement are brought to attention in this timely study.

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  The Place of the African Criminal Court in the Prosecution of Serious Crimes in Africa

  Charles Chernor Jalloh

  Africa has been at the forefront of contemporary global efforts towards ensuring greater accountability for international crimes. But the continent's early embrace of international criminal justice seems to be taking a new turn with the recent resistance from some African states claiming that the emerging system of international criminal law represents a new form of imperialism masquerading as international rule of law.
  
  This book analyses the relationship and tensions between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and Africa. It traces the origins of the confrontation between African governments, both acting individually and within the framework of the African Union, and the permanent Hague-based ICC. Leading commentators offer valuable insights on the core legal and political issues that have confused the relationship between the two sides and expose the uneasy interaction between international law and international politics. They offer suggestions on how best to continue the fight against impunity, using national, ICC, and regional justice mechanisms, while taking into principled account the views and interests of African States.

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  Corporate Finance : Debt, Equity, and Derivative Markets and their Intermediaries, 4th

  Jerry W. Markham, José Gabilondo, and Thomas Lee Hazen

  This casebook comprehensively surveys the legal and business issues raised by how business entities manage their capital structure. To prepare students to represent corporate issuers, institutional investors, and regulators, the casebook blends state law, federal securities regulation, accounting standards, professional responsibility norms, financial concepts, and business strategy into a practical deal perspective that emphasizes the client’s funding objectives. Coverage starts with the corporate issuer’s short-term liquidity, moves to notes, bonds, and mezzanine finance, and then continues down the balance sheet into equity, first common stock, then preferred, and, finally, judicial valuation of net worth. The casebook puts these issues in the context of federal regulation of securities, futures, and financial derivatives markets.

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  A Practical Introduction to Environmental Law

  Joel A. Mintz, John C. Dernbach, Steve C. Gold, Kalyani Robbins, Clifford Villa, and Wendy Wagner

  This casebook is designed to be used in upper level courses by law students with little or no prior familiarity with Environmental Law. It includes chapters on permitting, the philosophical underpinnings of the field, climate change, and the recently amended Toxic Substances Control Act, as well as traditional core topics in Environmental Law such as controlling air and water pollution. The book also contains numerous practice problems that introduce students to the everyday realities of environmental lawyering. A substantial Teacher's Manual provides model syllabi, detailed pedagogical suggestions, ready-to-use exams and quizzes, answers to all practice problems, and other useful materials.

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  Translating into Stone: The Monument to the Constitution of Cádiz in St. Augustine, Florida (1813- 1814)

  M C. Mirow

  St. Augustine, Florida, most likely has the only surviving monument to the Constitution of Cádiz erected during the first promulgation of the Constitution in the Spanish Empire. Constructed in 1813 and 1814, the monument was the most expensive public work in the city, then the capital of the Spanish province of East Florida. The monument was highly successful attempt to translate the Constitution into stone as a way of marking this city’s constitutional and imperial compliance. The chapter addresses the monument’s construction, projection, and unusual survival through constitutional and absolutist periods. The origin of the Masonic square and compass on one tablet of the monument continues as a topic of debate. When the region became a territory of the United States in 1821, it is likely that the subject of the monument was easily shifted from the Constitution of Cádiz to the United States Constitution. This chapter addresses the monument’s history and symbolism as well as the political conflicts that led to its construction. Minutes of the proceedings of the city council (cabildo constitucional) reveal that the monument was just one part of an attempt to establish an entrenched constitutional regime in the city and region. Leaders of the community worked swiftly to create required constitutional institutions, and a deputy was selected and sent to Cádiz in 1813 to represent the interests of St. Augustine.

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  Los Tribunales De La Florida Oriental (Tribunals of East Florida)

  M. C. Mirow

  Spanish Abstract: Desde 1513 hasta 1821, el área conocida como las Floridas estuvo bajo la corona española con la excepción de veinte años en el siglo XVIII cuando perteneció a la corona inglesa. Durante más de 300 años las Floridas fueron territorio español, pero se sabe muy poco sobre la aplicación del derecho indiano en dichas provincias, las instituciones en que la población litigaba, y los tribunales y oficiales legales existentes. Esta contribución describe la literatura secundaria que existe sobre los tribunales españoles en las Floridas, y particularmente en la Florida Oriental, y las fuentes más importantes de documentos relacionadas con ellos. Existen unas fuentes bastante grandes e importantes de documentos legales y de pleitos, sobre todo en el segundo período español (1783-1821), que aún no se han investigado y que esperan el interés de los historiadores del derecho.

  English Abstract: From 1513 to 1821, the area known as the Floridas was under the Spanish crown with the exception of twenty years in the eighteenth century when it belonged to Britain. For more than three hundred years, the Floridas were Spanish territory, but little is known about the application of Derecho Indiano in these provinces, the institutions in which people litigated, and the extant tribunals, and legal officials. This contribution describes the secondary literature on Spanish tribunals in the Floridas, particularly in East Florida, and the sources and documents related to the tribunals. Large and important sources of legal documents and trials exist, above all for the second Spanish period (1783-1821). These documents have not been investigated and await the interest of legal historians.

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  Sustainability & Business Law

  Antony Page and Robert A. Katz

  The term "for-profit social enterprise" (or simply "social enterprise") refers to businesses with shareholder-owners that seek to address social problems by comp- bining the dynamism of capitalized for-profit enterprise with the intentionally pro-social orientation of nonprofit organizations .... Some leading proponents of social enterprise seek to promote and facilitate social enterprise formation through business organizations law, most notably by supplying social entrepreneurs with new legal forms designed specifically for social enterprises. The push for new reflects dissatisfaction with the seemingly binary nature of existing options-the for-profit corporation, which inclines controllers to increase shareholder wealth with little regard for the interests of nonshareholders and society at large, and the traditional charitable nonprofit organization, which primarily serves social purposes but has less access to capital and less leeway to compensate high-performing executives and employees…

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  Coordinating the Overlapping Regulation of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management

  Kalyani Robbins

  What is the ideal division of power among states and the federal government when it comes to protecting biodiversity and managing wildlife and ecosystems? There may not be a single right answer to this question, but it is worth giving some thought, as the current system developed somewhat disjointedly and by chance. This chapter will review that dual development in Part I. It will then take a present-day snapshot in Part II, which discusses the various cooperative aspects of our existing approach. In Part Ill, we consider the potential for a more precise model of cooperative federalism than the somewhat haphazard model that organically developed and exists today. Finally, Part IV will look toward the changing climate of the future in order to spot the aspects of our present system that are incompatible with that future.

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  The Purposive Historian

  Eloisa Rodriguez-Dod

  In 2007, as I was writing a law review article about legal disputes among survivors regarding ashes of cremated decedents, my good friend and col- league, Professor Elena Maria Marty-Nelson, suggested I contact Professor Michael A. Olivas. She had read a personal account that Michael had posted on the Latino/a Law Profs Listserv that was relevant to my piece. She also was fairly confident that Michael would be amenable to my using His story in the article. I had never met Michael nor had I ever had the occa- sion to otherwise communicate with him either by telephone or email. So I was hesitant. How would he react when a stranger calls him to talk about His father's passing? I went ahead and called Michael, and I was truly pleased I did. We hit it off right away. We spoke about ourselves a bit, and he told me he had an aunt with the same name as me, Eloisa, so he would not forget who I was (lucky for me he loved his aunt). In the end, just as Elena had predicted, Michael was delighted that I wanted to include his post about his father in my article and immediately agreed. Thus my article begins as follows.

  Several years ago, Professor of Law Michael A. Olivas underwent some inner emotional and religious turmoil concerning his father's death. Professor Olivas wrote: Before my father, Sabino Olivas, a great chilero, died, he left clear oral instructions to me that his ashes were to be spread on his chile plants. He died following a car accident in 1998. I was the executor of his will, and I was required to make a solomonic choice-he was also a lifelong Catholic, and Catholics may be cremated but their ashes are to be interred in consecrated ground. What is el hijo mayor to do? Do first son obligations trump fiduciary obligations? ls a chile plant "consecrated" ground, under [New Mexico] law? ls this a case of habeas corpus? So l took a pinch of ash and sprinkled it on the plants in the backyard, and l buried the rest in his grave in the Santa Fe Military Cemetery.

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  The Intersection of Law, Religion, and Infectious Disease on the Handling and Disposition of Human Remains

  Eloisa Rodriguez-Dod, Aileen M. Marty, and Elena Marty-Nelson

  The 2014 West Africa Ebola crisis highlights the pressing need for effective laws and procedures governing the handling and disposition of infectious human remains. Existing frameworks, both domestically and internationally, are inconsistent and underdeveloped in ways that jeopardize public health and disregard decedents’ wishes concerning post-mortem disposition, trample on survivors’ quasi-property rights, and conflict with religious beliefs regarding care of the body. These issues become critically important when death results from a highly contagious deadly disease. For example, persons who die of Ebola have very high levels of the Ebola virus on their skin and on any leaked bodily fluids. Thus, when family members come in contact with the body, they can contaminate themselves and others. The World Health Organization noted that certain religious rites in the post-mortem handling of Ebola patients, such as washing, shrouding, and praying over the deceased, directly contributed to a significant number of new Ebola infections in the 2014 outbreak. In addition to its preparation and handling, the final disposition of the body also presents significant concerns. Although cremation may be viewed as an ideal scientific solution for final disposition of Ebola victims, it may violate moral values, cultural practices, and many religious beliefs, and meet significant resistance. When Liberian President Sirleaf decreed that Ebola victims had to be cremated, many in the community viewed the mandate as contrary to religious tenets and, instead, performed secret burials that led to even more infections.

  Without thoughtful and culturally sensitive laws and procedures in place, governments may, in times of crises, dictate particular methods of handling and disposing of highly contagious human remains that may not be as effective as needed and may unnecessarily infringe upon deeply held religious beliefs. The lack of an effective legal framework should be of serious concern to policymakers in all countries, including the United States. We propose the need for such a framework and provide guidance for decision makers confronting these issues. We suggest that any legal framework educate communities to understand the public health issues and empower them to address these issues in ways that respect religious beliefs. Moreover, in order to be truly effective, we also recommend that any solutions be inherently interdisciplinary and combine legal, medical, moral, humanitarian, and religious elements.

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  Law Professor and Accidental Historian: The Scholarship of Michael A. Olivas

  Ediberto Román

  Law Professor and Accidental Historian is a timely and important reader addressing many of the most hotly debated domestic policy issues of our times—immigration policy, education law, and diversity. Specifically, this book examines the works of one of the country's leading scholars—Professor Michael A. Olivas. Many of the academy's most respected immigration, civil rights, legal history, and education law scholars agreed to partake in this important venture, and have contributed provocative and exquisite chapters covering these cutting-edge issues. Each chapter interestingly demonstrates that Olivas's works are not only thoughtful, brilliantly written, and thoroughly researched, but almost every Olivas article examined has an uncanny ability to predict issues that policy-makers failed to consider. Indeed, in several examples, the book highlights ongoing societal struggles on issues Professor Olivas had warned of long before they came into being. Perhaps with this book, our nation's policy-makers will more readily read and listen closely to Olivas's sagacious advice and prophetic predictions.

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  Writing, Mentoring, and Even Battling Lurking Variables

  Ediberto Román

  Those that have the good fortune to read this anthology, which was written by many of the country's leading lights in the fields of immigra- tion policy, legal history, and law and education, will grow to appreciate the significance of professor, and now president of the University of Hous- ton, Downtown, Michael Olivas. These readers will likely be inspired by his pathbreaking legal scholarship, his prophetic legal and political analy- sis, which is often a decade or more ahead of its time, and his sorely needed counter to the skewed and narrow-minded dominant narrative of Latino and Latina experience in the United States. Many will be at least equally inspired by his Sisyphean yet undaunted struggle to make our legal acad- emy and our country more diverse, welcoming, and merit-based. Thus, unlike the countless stereotypical Hollywood depictions of the lazy and uneducated Latina or Latino, the dean of the Latino/a law profes- soriate has fought inequity with the proverbial pen, has used his keen intellect, cogent analysis and tireless energy to pen foundational and prescient works, and has engaged in aggressive and perhaps even pointed activism that has literally changed the face ( or faces) of our profession, but which also occurred with significant personal costs. For many of us in our ivory towers, we can only dream of having even a fraction of the impact Professor Olivas has had in his career. He has changed countless lives of academics, young and older immigrant families, and too many others to count in this essay. Each nevertheless will undoubtedly remain indebted, grateful, and proud to have such a force of nature championing their important causes, which in all likelihood would have gone unaddressed had he not become their champion. One of his most successful and inspiring mentees, and champion in his own right, Dean Kevin Johnson, aptly illustrated in the introduction to this volume how Olivas has championed sorely needed accurate Latina/o narratives. For me, Professor Olivas has also armed us with the courage to "walk the walk" with him in our own writings and our respective community engagement, and our efforts have been supported by the knowledge that an all-powerful figure in our profession will always "have our backs," or "support us," as perhaps our Anglo friends would prefer to describe it.

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  Genocide by Deportation into Poverty: Western Diplomats on Ottoman Christian Killings and Expulsions, 1914-1924

  Hannibal Travis

  "The final years of the Ottoman Empire were catastrophic ones for its non-Turkish, non-Muslim minorities. From 1913 to 1923, its rulers deported, killed, or otherwise persecuted staggering numbers of citizens in an attempt to preserve "Turkey for the Turks," setting a modern precedent for how a regime can commit genocide in pursuit of political ends while largely escaping accountability. While this brutal history is most widely known in the case of the Armenian genocide, few appreciate the extent to which the Empire's Assyrian and Greek subjects suffered and died under similar policies. This definitive volume is the first to comprehensively examine the genocides of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks in comparative fashion, analyzing the similarities and differences among them and giving crucial context to present-day efforts for reparative justice."--Provided by publisher.

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  Colombia: Ungoverned Territory and the Proliferation of Non-State Actors

  Victor M. Uribe-Uran

  Colombia is located in a strategic position in the Andean region as it borders Panama, Brazil, Venezuela, and Ecuador. In addition, it has access to two oceans and is only a two-and-a-half-hour airplane ride from the United States. Therefore, instability in the country can impact regional security and even security in the United States. Colombia has been a key ally of the United States as demonstrated by the fact that the United States has invested $10 billion in aid to help the Colombian government combat drug trafficking, organized crime, and the guerrilla organizations that exist in the country.

  The main objective of this chapter is to address some of the historical narratives, geopolitical and cultural factors, and demographic foundations of Colombia's strategic cultural orientation. The chapter also seeks to highlight key strategic cultural values and traditional orientations exhibited by the country (both the elite and the masses); to identify the primary purveyors of strategic culture; and, to look at continuities, changes, and challenges for strategic culture, particularly contemporary ones.