First day in office - May 25

The CHRD office is a short walk from our apartment, no more than 200 yards. I arrived about 9:15 AM and set up my laptop computer on the desk that has been assigned to me. Although CHRD had a computer for my use, it will be much easier for me to use my own laptop, so I can access my sent and received e-mails,  save documents and work on them at home, have access to my own files, including my growing files on Mongolian law, and use my voice recognition software. 

Ms. Amarjargal, or “Amraa,”  a lawyer and the Coordinator  of CHRD's program opposing human trafficking invited me to a three-day conference, to be held June 9 – 12, to discuss the relevant issues. The American Bar Association has a full-time paid lawyer in Ulan Baatar, who provides legal assistance, and CHRD and the ABA are putting on a program to discuss how to prosecute cases in Mongolia, with an emphasis on proving "non-material"  damages. I was asked to make a presentation, and would be happy to do so, assuming there is something that I can contribute. 

Amraa speaks fluent English: she lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn  for three months under U.S. State Department sponsorship. We discussed issues pertaining to litigation strategies and how traffickers can be confronted. I hope to have a further and more extended conversation with her about these issues, and hope that my perspective, both as a US lawyer and as a former community and union organizer, may be of value.

On Thursday, I gave Amraa a copy of my book on the Alien Tort Statute,  in the hope that the  discussions of international law in my book may be of interest to her.

After lunch (someone went out to purchase khuushuurs – a pancake with meat and onions, very tasty but a little greasy - a fairly common lunch food), Chimge and myself, together with  Ms.Baigalimaa, or Baigali, whose title is Assistant Officer, met with the students in the clinic. I presented a brief introduction of myself, followed by a discussion of public interest litigation.

I divided public interest litigation into three general categories:  1) cases brought to achieve specific results, either financial compensation for the victim or a specific injunction, 2) impact litigation, to establish a specific principle (describing Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade, which I also used to illustrate the problems with litigation becoming moot, and 3) legal services for the indigent, regardless of whether the case had any public implications.  I also asked the students to consider the circumstances of General Electric's opposition to dredging of the Hudson River to remove PCBs, and generated a lively discussion as to whether a citizens group, funded by General Electric, which opposed the dredging because of the placement of the PCBs in a landfill was acting in the public interest.

None of the students spoke English: I was of course completely dependent on Chimge for translation, both of my statements, and also of the questions and comments from the students. I don't think Chimge translated what I said literally: sometimes she would allow me to speak for long enough (say a paragraph or two) that she could not have done a literal translation. Still, it seemed that the communication was effective, although a bit awkward. From what I could tell from facial expressions and body language, the students enjoyed my presentation, but, in the absence of any direct verbal communication, I cannot be sure.