march madness

The start to my month of March has been marked with much needed motivational moments. Alliterations aside, I have been having a surprisingly productive start to the month which gives me hope that the few days before I leave for Vienna will not be consumed by trying to scramble together a 6,000 word essay or two. I am almost done with my essay on 'The Legality of Targeted Killing in Contemporary International Humanitarian Law' and am working hard on the research/outline phase for my harder essay on Kosovo's right to self-determination and the lawfulness of its unilateral declaration of independence under international law. My third essay, which I am yet to sort out, will be on cross-border coordinated policing efforts in the European Union.

I also believe I have my dissertation topic finally sorted out! I originally was looking at analyzing human rights concerns/lack of human rights safeguards in policies of asset seizure and confiscation set out in international conventions combating organized crime. I met with the head of the international law LLM program (also my international criminal law professor) this afternoon to discuss my idea and inquire about possible directions to go in or other topics that might be more worthwhile to explore.

It was a really helpful meeting, and I walked out with a better topic and some ideas of how to structure my approach (should I look into the topic more and decide on it). We started discussing related areas of law that are 'hotter topics' and where the literature is not comprehensive and the law is still being shaped, and got into discussing the UN Corruption Convention and how assets that are seized from countries whose corrupt leaders have embezzled billions of dollars of their nation's wealth. The issue then is how the stolen assets are recovered to the country, and in practice this is where existing laws and policies seem to fail. This topic is very relevant today, as anyone that flicks past the news can't help but hear about the currently frozen funds of the Gaddafi Family in Libya. Well, this is a different but related topic to the one that I originally thought up - the human rights issues are more abstract (i.e. socio-politica-economic issues regarding getting the money back into the right hands) but the topic is more interesting, seems more worthwhile, and my interest lies mainly in international criminal law these days than human rights.

School, as you can deduce, is going quite well and I'm in a good place with my work. This is a relatively new development, as in February I was very stressed out and overwhelmed with the work that lay ahead and was in need of some direction. Maybe the warmed days and increased sunshine helped? (and I say this as today was particularly cold and even revealed some frost/snow dabbled around the mountains and parts of the meadows!)
Last Friday night my friend Anke had a really nice dinner party for her birthday. She cooked up a 3 course meal for us, including a delicious carrot soup, an asian style spinach salad, and 2 lasagnas (one veggie and one meat). Another friend made Pavlova for dessert - a cake I had never heard of before, but now rank as one of my favorites; it consists of a light meringue base/border filled with a delicious creme that my friend made with white chocolate, and the top is covered with strawberries and raspberries. There was also much wine and a berry cocktail to be passed around the table. Talk about a heavenly meal!
I am also starting to pick up my running exercise regime in hopes of getting into shape for a 10k at the end of May! I am starting to "train" and hopefully as the weather gets nicer my outside runs will get better and better. While 10k is not a very challenging goal, it is a bit more than I can run now and it will give me a reason to actually hit the gym/road and get in better shape. I'm looking forward to it!