Cosmopolitan Lawyers?
Fourteen years ago, while in my senior
year at the law school (USC- Cebu), I submitted a short essay for the law
school’s ‘annual’ book, containing photos and thoughts of the graduates. My
submission was published, and, for no special reason I thought of sharing it here
in this column. Rereading the essay brought back memories of those halcyon
days. I also realized not much has changed in my views; in fact, the essay
seemed to presage the professional and academic career I would be treading
today. For example, it talks about Kiribati, a nation I hardly knew then. Now,
one of Kiribati’s islands –Banaba- is the focus of my PhD research relative to
the global phenomenon of climate change potentially triggering environmental
migrants. The story’s moral would be: pay attention to what you do today as this
may point to what you will become hence. Here’s the piece, enjoy:
Laws and institutions according to
Dick’s toasts, speeches and responses are like clocks. They must be wound up and set to true time.
Three years from now, and this is a generous estimate, all the good-looking
boys and girls in this album are lawyers in jusi barongs and samsonite
portfolios. What will inhabit their minds? Laws for sure. Philippine laws, and
perhaps, international law. But would they go beyond international law towards an
emerging cosmopolitan or world-embracing law? Would the new lawyers be
interested in the legal implications of, say, the legal and supranational
collaborations that set to flight the Ariane from Kourou, French Guiana? What about
the possibility of having to come up with an Asian parliament in the near
future; or, the unspectacular birth of Dominica, Vanuatu, Kiribati and other
small island nations? Are these isolated events, or would they be part of a
wider web of purpose, a larger scheme of things. Would any one from our class
care?
If none among our class ’87 cares, and
I hope we are not representative, then we are less perceptive than the would-be
historians in History-major class ’87. Historians love to see themselves in a
larger setting, a sort of cosmic time-table or clock where mankind’s written
history is but a wee second in the turning wheels of evolution. For them
tomorrow is a sequel to that giant movie that can be more or less plotted based
on moving trends of activity. The ASEAN is more than an association of Asian
countries but a stepping stone, a dry run to a much larger confederation.
There was one international gathering
held in Manila in 1977 called the Manila World Peace through Law Conference. It
was the 8th conference of its kind – the first being in Athens in
1963. These conferences have ‘Demonstration Trials’ where Chief Justices of
nations representing diverse governmental systems will hear arguments on
not-usually thought of legal subjects as ownership of seabed riches or
liability for damages caused by spaceship crashes. The justices are made to
hand down decisions. Indeed, such fora of judges and lawyers recognize that
gaps do exist in the laws on international cooperation and that they must be
filled. The ‘tools’ suggested range from steps towards greater reliance on the
International Court of Justice, the enactment of new treaties addressing
volatile political issues, to the idealistic ‘adjustment’ of national laws to
conform to one global legal framework.
According to Isaac Asimov, the concept
of national boundaries will become more and more ridiculous. And it is now
ridiculous enough already. What with the worldwide shift to computerization,
communication and high-technology forged on a personal level. These lightning speed gadgets of
communication and information respect no boundaries, creating transnational
relationships and transactions, as well as multi-state problems. Yet, existing
laws are still modelled after a worn out, State-centered paradigm invented in
year 1648 at the Treaty of Westphalia! If anything, new paradigms –and institutions-
need to be developed, one that’s more inclusive, cosmopolitan and responsive to
the supranational nature of the issues addressed to in these times.
The pooling together of trained legal
minds such as the conference in Manila is a step in the right direction. It can
also signal that the time is ripe for the discordant laws of various countries
to be assessed and reconsidered so they may be tuned in with the times. No
nation can escape the fact that all are becoming interdependent parts of a
single global system. There would be no turning back.
I am wrong then to hint that lawyers
do not always bother about the wider applications of law. With the albeit slow
awakening of that flick of international patriotism, lawyers including those
among Class ’87 of USC Law, may present brilliant showing. If historians plot
the past to forecast future trends it is on the lawyer’s shoulder that these
trends are concretely marked out and refined.
sydney15november2011
Key: University of San Carlos, USC Law, Lawyers, Filipino lawyers