The United States Blockade of Cuba: Is Helms-Burton Legally Defensible?

For more information: Catherine Anderson at cla213@is.nyu.edu

a symposium sponsored by The Cuba Legal Studies Group at New York University School of Law

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2000 5:30 – 9:00 PM NYU School of Law, Greenberg Lounge 40 Washington Square South, New York City

The Cuba Legal Studies Group at New York University School of Law will bring together legal scholars and public policy experts to participate in the ongoing international debate about the legitimacy of the continuing United States Embargo of Cuba. The panel participants will address the latest developments in the thirty-seven-year-old embargo, specifically the Helms-Burton Act.

Shortly after the downing of two American planes that had allegedly violated Cuban airspace in 1996, Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act. The Act strengthened the United States embargo of Cuba that had been in effect since 1962 and imposed new secondary boycotts on U.S. trading partners under Title IV of the Act. Mexico and Canada have condemned Title IV as a violation of Chapter 16 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The foreign ministers of the European Union (EU) have also challenged the Act before the World Trade Organization (WTO). Many international public law experts have criticized the Act as a violation of the customary rules of international law.

Panelists include experts on all sides of the issue: His Excellency Rafael Dausá Céspedes, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Deputy Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations; Brice M. Clagett, Esq., Partner, Covington & Burling, author of “Title III of the Helms-Burton Act is Consistent with International Law”; Sandra Levinson, Executive Director, Center for Cuban Studies, New York City; Michael Krinsky, Esq., Partner, Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman, PC, a law firm representing Cuba; Terry Maroney, Esq., Director, Youth Project, Urban Justice Center, NYU School of Law, Class of 1998, and Co-founder of NYU’s Cuba Legal Studies Group; and Professor Carlos Rosenkrantz, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, NYU School of Law, Global Law Faculty.

The symposium has been organized by NYU Law School’s Cuba Legal Studies Group (CLSG), an educational, non-partisan, student organization dedicated to the study of Cuban law and society. CLSG strives to create a forum for critical discussion and analysis of Cuba and U.S.-Cuba relations. For the past three years, CLSG has sponsored legal research trips by NYU Law students to Cuba where students have taken courses at the University of Havana Law School and observed a variety of Cuban Legal institutions.

01/12/00