MAY 7, 2001
CONTACT: RUTH S. INTRESSMedia Relations Director[email protected] or (540) 463-8955
LEARN MORE ABOUT W&L: www.wlu.edu
United Nations Weapons Negotiator to Address W&L Law Graduates
Richard Butler, who oversaw the United Nation's Special Commission charged with the disarmament of Iraq, is the guest speaker at Washington and Lee University's School of Law Commencement May 13.
An expected 119 graduates will receive their juris doctor degrees at the ceremonies, which begin at 2:30 p.m. on the University's historic Front Lawn. Law School Dean David Partlett and W&L President John Elrod will distribute diplomas to the graduates, many of whom will be joining law firms from California to Texas to New York. Several dozen other graduates have retained positions in corporations and as prosecutors, public defenders and, for 23 graduates, as law clerks for state and federal court judges around the country.
"Our Law School's proudest moment comes when we gather to recognize the achievement of our students," said Partlett. "All 119 of them - 49 women and 70 men - are to be congratulated for their mastery of legal principles. Each brings a promise that his or her learning, the foundation of which has been attained for three arduous years, will improve the justness of our social order. They will be a credit to our profession."
Butler is the diplomat in residence at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, a nonpartisan international research and publishing center. In 1996, as Australia's Ambassador to the United States, he managed the adoption by the United Nations of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
From 1997 to 1999, Butler was executive director of UNSCOM, the special commission launched by the United Nations to resolve armament disputes with Iraq. In that position, he led a team of inspectors who attempted to eliminate Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons capability and long-range missiles.
After the U.S.-British air and missile attacks on Iraqi targets, UNSCOM's operations were suspended amidst Baghdad's continuing refusal to fulfill disarmament obligations. The U.N. Security Council's widening rift on how to deal with Saddam Hussein led Butler to leave his United Nation's post in 1999.
Butler discussed his disappointment in the disbanding of UNSCOM and his views that Hussein is one of the world's most menacing rulers in his recent book, "The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Crisis of Global Security." For years, he also has urged the United States to reclaim the leadership in disarmament that it had after World War II.
Through the years, Butler has served at Australian embassies in Vienna, Singapore, Bonn and at the United Nations. In 1989, he was appointed Australia's Ambassador to Thailand and, in 1991, was named representative to the Supreme National Council of Cambodia, where he was a key negotiator in the Cambodian peace accords.
Butler, who helped launch a global AIDS program in the mid-1990s as president of the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council, holds degrees in economics and international relations from the University of Sydney and the Australian National University.
-30-
RSS