The impressively improbable Professor Bederman
"None of us can match his combination of professional gifts as scholar, teacher, and advocate. But each of us can take a piece of his work and build on the strong foundations he has laid." - John Witte Jr.
Bederman was beloved among his colleagues and was referred to as "one of the very best."
The self-confessed “total landlubber” nonetheless plumbed impressive depths when it came to his teaching and scholarship. In fact, his career inspired Dean Robert Schapiroto comment, “David’s record of scholarly achievement was impressive to the point of being improbable.”
Bona fides of the highest order
Bederman held degrees from Princeton University, the University of London, the University of Virginia School of Law, and The Hague Academy of International Law. The author of 12 books and 125 articles, he gave more than 80 lectures at distinguished universities and learned societies, and he held highly regarded visiting professorships in this country and Canada. Bederman was counsel of record in 52 US Court of Appeals cases, and he argued four cases before the US Supreme Court. His professional affiliations included serving on the executive councils of the American Society of International Law, the International Law Association, and the Institute for Transnational Arbitration. He served on the editorial boards of the American Journal of International Law, the Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce, the Journal of the History of International Law, and Grotiana as well as on the advisory board of the American Journal of Legal History.
A powerhouse at Emory Law for 20 years, Bederman set what one commentator called a “blistering pace,” earning promotion, tenure, and the prestige of being named the K.H. Gyr Professor of Private International Law. Before his untimely death from cancer at the age of 50, he taught a range of courses (International Law, Torts, Admiralty, International Institutions, Law of International Common Spaces, Legal Methods, Legislation and Regulation, Customary Law, International Environmental Law, and Foreign Relations Power); was director of international legal studies; established Emory Law’s Supreme Court Advocacy Project; advised the Emory International Law Review; and was an associated faculty member of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion.
More than 4,000 students reaped the benefit of his teaching. Bederman, according to I. T. Cohen Professor Johan van der Vyver, “is known to have been one of the very best,” receiving the Ben Johnson Teaching Prize from the law school and the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award from the university. According to John Witte Jr. - Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, Alonzo L. McDonald Distinguished Professor, and director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion - “No professor in the history of Emory Law comes close to [David’s] record as an advocate and litigator. He shared these gifts and opportunities with his law students, too, drawing them into his research and brief writing.”
Buoyed by the love of family and friends, and revealing a grit that surprised no one, Bederman survived eight years with his disease, long enough to be - physically weak but spirited - the improbable first speaker in the David J. Bederman Distinguished Lecture series, established in 2011 to honor his record of scholarship, teaching, and advocacy. His lecture, “Public Law and Custom,” prompted a standing ovation from a packed house and a line for signed copies of his most recent book, Custom as a Source of Law. That speech was on September 26; he died a little more than two months later, on December 4.
All the ways his spirit remains
As Witte prophetically said in eulogizing Bederman, “None of us can match his combination of professional gifts as scholar, teacher, and advocate. But each of us can take a piece of his work and build on the strong foundations he has laid.” And that effort began immediately. On the day he died, in what his wife, Lorre Cuzze 14PH, describes as the only bright spot, the school learned of a $500,000 gift to the David J. Bederman Fund. More support followed, with his fellow faculty members pledging $250,000 within a week.
The Bederman lectures continued on the high trajectory that their namesake set, including Stephen J. Rapp, Fatou Bensouda, Symeon C. Symeonides, T. Alexander Aleinikoff, and President Jimmy Carter, who represent a mix of leading practitioners and scholars of international law.
By 2014, the Bederman Fund was able to support a research professorship and fellowship. The David J. Bederman Research Professorship annually recognizes the outstanding contributions of a faculty member and offers a course release to support his or her scholarly work. The inaugural recipient was Jonathan Nash, professor of law, who pursued two projects, the first of which examined the standing of states to sue the federal government in federal court. His second project looked at the role that agency funding plays in the fulfillment of the agency’s ultimate policy goals.
In Nash’s view, there was high honor in being associated with the Bederman name; as he says, “David was a world-renowned scholar and a leader at the law school. I knew personally of his commitment and great collegiality.”
Michael S. Kang, professor of law, was the second Bederman scholar, using the time afforded by the professorship to study judicial elections and campaign finance law, which yielded articles in the Yale Law Journal and Stanford Law Review. He joins Nash in the expression of gratitude, noting, “I am truly honored to hold this research chair dedicated to my late colleague and friend.”
In a number of ways, the David J. Bederman Fellowship in International Law is the perfect avenue for honoring Bederman, considering that he met his future wife in the Peace Palace in The Hague during his enrollment at The Hague Academy of International Law in 1986. The fellowship program is now in its third year. Fellows receive a grant to cover travel costs and living expenses in The Hague as well as tuition and fees for study in the prestigious Summer Programme at The Hague Academy of International Law, which attracts students from all over the world.
Nicholas Aliotta 17L, who will be joining the US Air Force Jag Corps after graduation, was a Bederman fellow in summer 2015. When Aliotta first heard about the fellowship, he recalls understanding that getting into his preferred fields - international humanitarian law and foreign relations law -“was difficult, especially straight from law school, and that I therefore had to start getting some things on my resume that set me apart from the rest. The Bederman Fellowship did that for me.”
He fell in love with the Netherlands and describes The Hague as “simply stunning,” with the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Court all located in the same city. “It provides,” says Aliotta, “a front-row seat to international law being practiced on a daily basis.” Highlights included seeing the trial of Ratko Mladić, the former Bosnian Serb leader accused of war crimes, and meeting with a sitting judge for the International Court of Justice. A grateful Aliotta sums it up by saying, “Really, what this opportunity did for me was set off a chain reaction of events that brought me to my present success.”
Vice Dean Robert B. Ahdieh, who oversees the fellowship program and is the current K.H. Gyr Professor of Private International Law, has commented on his role in extending the Bederman legacy, saying, “To be successor to David only adds to this special honor. He set a high bar for anyone to follow, but I hope to do my best to live up to that standard.
“As far as international law is concerned,” Ahdieh continues, “David was a pillar of both the scholarship and practice community in the US. This program would have been close to his heart because David was so engaged with his students across an array of areas and undertakings - in class, outside class, as an adviser. The program is an appropriate legacy for David because, in some sense, it allows him to continue to nurture the next generation of lawyers, particularly those who will have an impact in international law.”
How to continue building?
Witte offers a clear-eyed assessment of all of the above, saying that the lecture, professorship, and fellowship “are fine interim measures for continuing the cutting-edge work that David did as a scholar.” He acknowledges, though, that the private side of international law at Emory “is waiting to be rebuilt, but it is a priority on the part of the administration and faculty. We have lost several great scholars of international and comparative law this past decade in addition to David, and they need to be replaced.
“We understand,” Witte continues, “that globalization has affected legal education in powerful ways. It is incumbent on a top law school like ours to continue to prepare for the next generation of practitioners and leaders of the bar and bench, who, by definition, have to be internationally inclined.” The hard question, he says, is whether to hire specialists who do international and comparative work or “pervade the curriculum so that everyone who teaches has some global exposure.” The school might elect a combination of approaches, with the so-called pervasive mode making the most sense for the long term.
In all that has transpired since Bederman’s death, it is clear that the man in the deep end of the pool inspired an even deeper love. Each lecturer, professor, and fellow bearing the Bederman name is part of the fabric keeping his standard of excellence in force at Emory Law. As Witte counseled in the emotional closing words of the eulogy for his friend and colleague, “We will honor him best, I think, if we carry on with the work that he so ably undertook in his brilliant but brief career.”
