Kevin M. Krauss

International Law Students Association

Statement of Intent to Stand for Office
2012 ILSA Student Officer Candidacy for:

President, Vice President, and Chief Communications Officer [1]

KEVIN M. KRAUSS

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY and BACKGROUND [2]

My name is Kevin Krauss and have decided to specialize in International Humanitarian and Disarmament Law. Ever since my childhood, I have known that I had an unexplainable desire to make the world a better place. It was not until I began studying law, however, that I realized how to reach this goal. My first real “life-changing” international experience occurred during the summer of 2010, while attending a Summer Abroad Law Program at the University of Nairobi Law School in Kenya. After experiencing the various cultures and relationships formed, I found myself 15,000 feet in the air, ¾ of the way up Mt. Kilimanjaro. As I saw the sun setting overtop of the clouds and stretching out infinitely in swirling, vibrant colors, my cathartic moment hit me – I needed to do everything that I could to make sure not only the beauty of this world is preserved for generations to come, and to ensure that succeeding generations were able to peacefully enjoy that beauty – as a self-described ‘realistic idealist’, I knew that the best way to affect this type of positive change would be through effective and consensual rule-of-law initiatives within the legal and political system, itself. When I returned to the United States, I participated in my first Jessup Competition; and I found the vehicle for my journey – the International Legal System of the United Nations.

As detailed after this statement, I have invaluable leadership experience; an Undergraduate Student Government President, to the Editor-in-Chief of an Undergraduate Student Newspaper; to my current experiences as my school’s International Law Society President. As the ILS President, our active membership nearly doubled, ILS is now one of the top organizations on my campus, I personally drafted a new constitution for our ILS, we attended the 2011 International Law Weekend for the first time in recent history and in just a few weeks time, our ILS is having our first ever elections (after transitioning from an appointment system) – and every board position is contested. I was also a two-time competitor and Student Coach in the Jessup Competition, and organized a tremendously successful campus discussion on Nuclear Nonproliferation with a former Plenipotentiary U.S. Ambassador, Thomas Graham, Jr. (a video and short write-up of the event is available here: http://law.widener.edu/NewsandEvents/Articles/2011/de120211ambassadorgraham.aspx). This summer, I have also been selected as the legal extern for two separate civil society organizations on arms control and disarmament.

Two ventures are of particular interest and are not detailed below.

1. Firstly, I oversaw the creation, and organization of, a student-led committee with the stated purpose and goal to create an International and Comparative Law Journal. This would be one of the few International Law Journals created and collaborated on with another law school, not just in another state, but with another law school in a foreign nation on a separate continent. The committee created a financial pro-forma with a complete 5-year plan for a scaled entry into the field. Unfortunately the proposal was not accepted due to the current fiscal state of affairs, but the effort and potential product was commended as a laudable effort.

2. Secondly, I am spearheading an effort to create a Remote Public International Law Research Clinic and Institute where our students would be able to assist lawyer’s, advocates and civil society organizations worldwide in preparing international law research and memorandums of law.

Prior to my matriculation into law school, I obtained invaluable collaborative and organizational experience performing Corporate Fundraising functions with the United Way, where I regularly met with and worked with area CEOs and other executives. Additionally, during that time, I was also trained and certified to effectively serve as a board member of a non-profit organization.

I have had many wonderful opportunities thus far in my law school career, and as a result of these experiences, I have developed a tremendous drive to affect positive change in the international legal field. Currently, as I transition into my final year of law school, I am looking to take one step closer on the long road to realizing the dream of ensuring the peaceful enjoyment of the world for succeeding generations that was first envisioned atop the beautiful snow-capped, albeit unfortunately melting, Mount Kilimanjaro.

PLATFORM GOALS FOR ILSA INVOLVEMENT

First, ILSA-CHAPTER RELATIONS, WEB SITE IMPROVEMENTS, AND PROMOTION OF ILSA’S POST-LAW SCHOOL OPPORTUNITIES:

· I would like to further ILSA’s connections with our member law schools and to increase the number of schools with Chapters in the Association. The ILSA Student Board took tremendous strides in this regard this year by launching the new ILSA website and especially with the Webcast Discussion of the 2012 Jessup Compromis.

· I continually have ideas and suggestions for the website – one which I would like to focus on especially is to revamp the section on the L.L.M. programs. There are an extraordinary number of resources on this section; yet, not nearly enough students know of or take advantage of the benefits. A reorganization of the section and a campaign to make every member law school aware of these resources is needed.

· Furthermore, depending on logistical resources and protocol, the creation of a student position to provide outreach regarding these opportunities could prove extremely useful.

Second, JESSUP COMPETITION IMPROVEMENTS:

· After competing in the Jessup Competition for two years and organizing the entire team and competition this past year, I have a number of insights that I would like to address on the structural level.

· I would like to provide greater detail to what is relied on for the scoring of the competition (e.g. better explanation of how the memorials and oral rounds are scored in terms of content and style).

· I have heard, as many others have, of criticism of the international law background of the Regional Round judges – some are fantastic and some accept the competitor’s oral arguments as the current state of the law. Understandably, this is a tricky topic with the shear size and reach of the Jessup Competition, but at the very least, there should always be efforts to create an even more comprehensive bench memo and a more rigorous vetting/educating process of potential judges.

· I would like to see a renewed insistence on an earlier dissemination of the Compromis, First Batch of Materials and, especially, the Second Batch of Materials. It is extremely difficult for newly established Chapters and/or teams to be as successful as long-standing Jessup programs when they not only have arguably fewer resources, but have to contend with the extremely short time period between the release of the Second Batch of Materials and the Memorial Submission Due Dates. This burden is also, however, absolutely felt by every Chapter’s Jessup Team, new or old, and as a former competitor, I can speak for my peers when stating that even an extra day or two can make a world of difference.

· Further pertaining to the Jessup Competition, I would like to see the further establishment and enlargement of the Friends of the Jessup network – a collection of these contacts and recruitment of past FOJs should be established on an international level and kept in a database for each Chapter as a part of their ILSA Chapter page. The stronger FOJ network would also potentially give rise to a need for regional and sub-regional FOJ networks so that Chapters operating in close proximity would have access to more resources.

Third, REGIONAL AND SUB-REGIONAL ILSA CHAPTER RELATIONS:

Regarding the Regional and Sub-Regional Friends of the Jessup network previously discussed, I would like ILSA to explore the possibility of creating a this kind of network not just for FOJ, but for the Chapters themselves to have greater awareness and cooperation with each other. A forum where physically close and/or interested Chapters had access to the events, policies and resources of their sister Chapters would provide a collaborative environment fostering cooperation and inter-chapter relations on an unprecedented scale – just meeting our law school cohort of peers once or twice during International Law Weekend and Jessup is not enough. When my ILS had a discussion with a former Plenipotentiary U.S. Ambassador, it would have been wonderful for everyone to experience the informative and entertaining dialogue with a man who negotiated every major arms control and disarmament treaty, on behalf of the U.S., in the past 30 years.

Fourth, MODEL BY-LAWS AND MISSION STATEMENTS:

In a fairly straight-forward and easy initiative, I would like ILSA to gather the by-laws, constitutions and mission statements of ILSA Chapters who are willing to cooperate and establish a template for ILSA Chapters that are just starting out or are revamping their own Chapter’s structure. A set of model by-laws and mission statements would invariably prove very useful for Chapters and could greatly further the goal of an increased number of Chapters since establishment would be less of an insurmountable task for the typically small group of busy law students with ILSA membership aspirations.

Fifth, INCREASED PARTICIPATION IN ILSA PUBLICATIONS:

· The possibility and invitation to have an article or a description of chapter events published in an ILSA publication/journal is a magnificent opportunity not available to the vast majority of the worlds’ law students not involved with an organization like ILSA. The promotional efforts of ILSA should result in a backlog of submission requests. These publications are far under-utilized. Additional survey would be required, but it is also my guess that readership and dissemination of the journals could be improved.

· We should initiate a series of competitions to increase publication and readership. A few examples: the Chapter that submits the greatest number of articles receives a to-be-determined Chapter Programming Event; a photo contest could be easily instituted where ILSA Chapters send in photos of various and creative places where they are reading the publications; and, a Chapter could be awarded a Chapter Happenings Spotlight with an increased special Chapter-focused portion of an issue.

Sixth, FURTHER PROMOTION AND USE OF THE CHAPTER GRANT PROGRAM:

· It is no coincidence that a theme is developing where we have tremendous opportunities and programs within ILSA already, but they are unfortunately under-utilized by Chapters. I would like to further encourage the use of and promotion of the Chapter Grant Program.

· One potential avenue for improvement ties in to the aforementioned ILSA Publication suggestion – programs and competitions that could potentially result in greater inter-chapter awareness and ILSA publication readership, while at the same time providing for the effective use of the Chapter Grant Program.

· Secondly, some further thought and research could certainly go in to efforts to increase the ease of access to the program. As it stands, a Chapter must, reasonably, go through many steps on their local Chapter level prior to request. This makes fiscal sense, but the burden is still a difficult one with the limited amount of time in the semester (while remembering to focus on actual law school work at the same time). One alternative is to further advertize the availability of ILSA to assist with finding outside funding for an event, such as a civil society organization program sponsor.

Thank you very much for your time and attention. I wish that I could attend the ILSA Congress with you all, but both fortunately and unfortunately, part of the requirements of receiving the Eisendrath Award for Youth Advocacy in Nuclear Disarmament obliges me to personally attend and accept the award at the Haas/Eisendrath Award Ceremony in Philadelphia immediately after the ILSA Congress in Washington, D.C. Nevertheless, I hope you will honor me by allowing me to serve you this upcoming year.

Best Regards,

~ Kevin M. Krauss

Juris Doctorate Candidate, International Law

Widener University School of Law, 2013

PROFESSIONAL and EDUCATION HISTORY:

LEGAL EXPERIENCE, ORGANIZATIONS and AFFILLIATIONS:

Summer 2012 Global Law Extern, Global Security Institute AND the Lawyers’ Committee for Nuclear Policy - New York, NY, Philadelphia, PA AND Washington, D.C.

· Will assist in research, writing, preparing legal theory in preparation for the organizations initiatives, assist in compiling literature to be disseminated to organization members, will attend and assist in facilitating organization functions, and will provide support in generating, managing and supporting all other organization endeavors.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30