Letter from the International Law Section Chair

• Publication year: 2020
• Author: Joshua Surowitz

LETTER FROM THE INTERNATIONAL LAW SECTION CHAIR

Joshua Surowitz^*

ILS Chair

Dear Fellow ILS Members,

As summer has turned to fall, it cannot be overstated how challenging and divergent from normal 2020 has been for California's practitioners of international law. In addition to the economic and public health uncertainties to which all sectors and practice areas are exposed, those occupying the international sphere of our profession have been cut off from our world in terms of our ability to be physically near where so many of our interests and commitments exist. As our nation of around 4% of the global population has owned a full one-quarter of the planet's transmissions of COVID-19, by this summer, other than a smattering of island nations, the shrinking list of countries to which we could travel with a United States (US) passport included just Cambodia, Croatia, Mexico, Serbia, Tanzania, and the UAE. I myself, like a number of other members of ILS, were to have participated this July in our Section's Barcelona Summer Law Conference in Spain, a cooperative endeavor between the CLA ILS and the Barcelona Bar Association, with whom we renewed our organizational "Friendship Agreement" earlier this year. Instead, we are working from home and, fortunately, both of our Bar Associations still fully plan to hold this event, albeit in summer 2021. We have also begun reworking the excellent international legal educational programs from this conference for virtual programming being rolled out in the form of online CLE programming. Based on the hard work of our Educational Programs Committee, this content will be equally excellent and at the usual high standard of our Section, though we will need to wait until next summer to enjoy the in-person hospitality of our friends in Barcelona.

ILS members, and future members, have also faced other challenges as a result of new policies surrounding the pandemic. International students at California and other US universities, including international law students, feared they may need to quickly exit the US and discontinue their education. Per a previous order of our executive branch, any foreign students attending universities utilizing safer virtual education alternatives were to be out of status and face cancellation of their visas and removal from the country. Fortunately, due to substantial public outcry from our profession and others, this disruptive order did not come to pass. International law practitioners with foreign...