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Proyecto
ACCESO is promoting the
rule of law throughout the Americas.
The ACCESO team works with all the sectors in the administration
of justice. We are judges, prosecutors, public defenders,
legal educators, and journalists. We are building new
systems for conflict resolution that are fair, efficient
and transparent.
By training legal innovators, together we are srengthening
the rule of law in our Hemisphere.
For more information contact us
[email protected]
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NAFTA Summer Program News Update
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 "This
is real life," Professor James Cooper told students in his Introduction
to NAFTA course, as he negotiated with the taxi driver union leaders
on a Tijuana street for safe and unfettered passage for the bus and
its occupants on June 11, 2005. Minutes later, the illegal taxi blockade
of the bus in which the students were in, drove off, allowing the
bus to continue on its way. "This is cross-cultural negotiation
in action," the Canadian-born law professor said smiling.
Twenty-four students from six law schools around the United States
are participating in the NAFTA Summer Program at California Western
School of Law. The program is a four-week learning opportunity provided
by the Consortium for Innovative Legal Education. The NAFTA Summer
Program is being recorded by the students for a future ACCESO Vision
DVD release.
 On
June 11, the NAFTA Summer Program participants visited the Tijuana-San
Isidro border area, listened to Professor Bryan Liang talk about the
close to 25% rate of counterfeit medicines in the Tijuana area while
in front of the Plaza of Pharmacies in downtown Tijuana, visited a
toxic waste site where Metales y Derivados used to have its environmentally
unfriendly plant, and toured El Aroyo de Colonia Chilpancingo, downstream
from the toxic waste site and home of a women’s collective using
NAFTA to address its environmental and health concerns.
"Wow," said Bill Beck, a second year student at New England
School of Law, after visiting with collective leader Magdelan Cerda,
"There has got to be a better way to make globalization work.
These people make only five dollars a day in the maquiladora factories
up the hill." Trina Pangalilingan concurred: "This reminds
me of the Philippines with all the poverty and unfairness, but it
is only a few miles south of San Diego."
 The
students also visited a wood factory in the Agua Caliente and learned
from California Western law professor Richard Finkmoore about the
invasive species of beetles from China that are quickly spreading
environmental harm from Mexico to Canada.
The trip to Tijuana complemented other voyages through the San Diego
area earlier in the week including interviews with migrant labors
working in unsafe conditions, a visit to the San Diego Port Authority
where students met dockworkers, protected by unions, who make up to
$210,000 annually, and talks by border artists Sergio de la Torre,
Victor Payan and Perry Vasquez and Deputy Consul General Ricardo Pineda
of the Mexican Consulate in San Diego.
For Cooper, the Program’s director, "this is an interactive
program and feels like a combination of legal laboratory, corporate
annual meeting, street theatre and union job action."
Go
here for more pictures |
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