The East Asian Legal Studies Center is delighted to sponsor Professor Alexis Dudden of the University of Connecticut and the University of Wisconsin Law School's own Associate Dean Kelly in a talk titled "The Islands Problem: Tensions Between China, Japan, and Taiwan in the East China Sea." The discussion will take place on October 9th, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM in the Foley & Lardner Courtroom, Room 3260. Anyone is welcome to attend and listen to this engaging discussion where each speaker will lecture for 20 minutes with a discussion to follow. Special thanks to Professor Sarah Thal, Professor John Ohnesorge, and Professor Sida Liu, EALSC Interim Director, for their contributions in supporting this event.
About the talk: Japan has territorial disagreements with each of its international neighbors -China, Taiwan, Korea, and Russia- in the form of sovereignty contests over tiny islands in the seas between them. These islands represent shards of Japan's modern history of war and empire. Brinksmanship over ownership of these islands has intensified dramatically in recent years. Today, the nation that wins exclusive control not only maintains control over the islands, but the ocean floor, too. With the most to gain, Japan has the most to lose. In clear but complicated ways, the intensity of Japan's disagreement centers on these discrete yet tightly linked phenomena.
With specific regard to the most prominent of the Japanese territorial disputes, the dispute with China over the Senkaku Islands (with the Chinese call the Diaoyu), what has characterized the United States approach with respect to the international legal issues, US defense policy, and American strategic concerns?
About Professor Alexis Dudden: Alexis Dudden is a professor of history at the University of Connecticut. She has written extensively about Japan and Northeast Asia, publishing recently online in Dissent, The Diplomat, and the Huffington Post among other venues. Dudden has numerous articles in print, and her books include Troubled Apologies Among Japan, Korea, and the United States (Columbia) and Japan's Colonization of Korea (Hawaii), and she is currently writing a book about Japan's territorial disputes and the changing meaning of islands in international law. Dudden received her BA from Columbia University in 1991 and her Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago in 1998. She has lived and studied for extended periods of time in Japan and South Korea, and this past year she was at Princeton University as a visiting fellow in the Institute of International and Regional Studies. Additional awards include Fulbright Fellowships to Japan and Korea, ACLS, NEH, SSRC grants, and a year as a fellow at Harvard University's U.S.-Japan Program.
About Associate Dean Kevin Kelly: Associate Dean Kevin Kelly has been on the Law School Staff since 1998. He received a B.S. with honors in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and his J.D. with honors from the University of Wisconsin where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Wisconsin Law Review. Following graduation from law school Dean Kelly served as a criminal defense attorney and staff judge advocate in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps, and was stationed in San Francisco and Scotland. Dean Kelly is an officer in the Naval Reserve specializing in military operational law, the law of armed conflict and related international law issues. In 2003, he was recalled to active duty, serving as a NATO legal advisor to the Peace Stabilization Force (SFOR) in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as on the U.S. European Command headquarters staff during the Iraq War. His current assignment is to the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Navy, International and Operational Law, Pentagon. His immediate past assignment was Commanding Officer of the U.S. Naval War College International Law Department reserve unit in Newport, Rhode Island.
Questions regarding the event can be directed to ealsc@law.wisc.edu.
Submitted by EALSC News on October 6, 2014
This article appears in the categories: EALSC
