by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
The fall of the Berlin Wall contributed to a rise in opportunities to study international and comparative law, and one Florida Coastal School of Law (FCSL) professor has helped create a program to let students take advantage of those opportunities.
Professor John Knechtle has contributed to the creation and development of FCSL and, soon after its doors open, the American Caribbean Law Initiative (ACLI). The goal of the American Caribbean Law Initiative is to cultivate opportunities and relationships that allow its members to expand their pursuit of the study of law at home and abroad.
“I was in Washington, D.C., working for a project of the American Bar Association,” said Knechtle of his work before joining FCSL. “It was called the Central and East European Law Initiative. We provided legal assistance to countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. When the Berlin Wall came down the president of the ABA and president of the International Law Section thought (Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union) would be interested in receiving legal advice on how to change from a Communist regime to a free market economy. I’ve had the privilege of working on about 20 draft constitutions for that part of the world.”
Knechtle used this experience to establish the ACLI in 2000. The original members of the program include Norman Manley Law School, Jamaica, Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center, Ft. Lauderdale, Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law, Houston, and FCSL.
The membership agreed on a list of ideas to further its educational mission and the top priorities were establishing, A Caribbean Law Clinic (CLC) in which students from participating institutions would assess legal problems and issues responsive to the needs of the governments of the Caribbean nations and a network among law schools in the Americas and the Caribbean Basin that will be a resource for reviewing and evolving the law of participating nations.
“I thought the programs that I had run through the American Bar Association could also be run through the platform of a law school,” said Knechtle. “In some areas, I thought it made more sense than a bar association.”
The program was such a good fit for the classroom that it has doubled its membership since it began in 2000. The Eugene Dupuch Law School in Nassau, Bahamas, joined the ACLI and began participating in the Caribbean Law Clinic in 2002 and the Hugh Wooding Law School, in Trinidad & Tobago, joined in 2003. Howard University School of Law, Washington, D.C., and Stetson University College of Law, Tampa, are the most recent members, joining in 2004.
The program has been well received at FCSL and has provided many “eye-opening” experiences for students.
“(In 2007) we got to travel to Grand Cayman to present our findings/research to the Attorney-General. As this was my first ‘significant’ experience with comparative law, foreign legal research and Caribbean jurisprudence, it was a real eye opener,” said Brent Hicks, a Coastal Law student. “Seeing the law through a different lens helped me further develop my legal analytical skills. Further, working collaboratively with students from a different cultural background and legal tradition helped me grow as a person and a lawyer.”
Hicks plans to return to Holland where he plans to work for the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, an organization he was first introduced to through FCSL’s International Criminal Law Externship.
356-2466