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The United Nations Legal Counsel, Mr. Serpa Soares, visits Washington, D.C.
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14 March 2018

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From 14 to 16 March 2018, the Legal Counsel of the United Nations, Mr. Serpa Soares, visited Washington, D.C. On this mission, the Legal Counsel was accompanied by his Deputy, Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, Mr. Stephen Mathias.

Mr. Serpa Soares visited Washington, D.C., at the invitation of Professor Sean D. Murphy, Member of the International Law Commission, to deliver the 2018 Brand/Manatt Lecture at George Washington University Law School on 14 March 2018. The Legal Counsel was welcomed to the Law School by its Dean, Professor Blake Morant, and introduced by Professor Murphy. The students of George Washington Law attended the lecture in large numbers and actively participated in the discussion which followed the lecture. The event was also attended by many academics and practitioners of international law from the D.C. area, as well as by several members of the law school faculty.

Mr. Serpa Soares also travelled to Washington, D.C., to meet with Ms. Jennifer G. Newstead, Legal Adviser in the U.S. Department of State. Ms. Newstead was accompanied by her Deputy, Mr. Richard Visek. The meeting provided a welcome opportunity to have an exchange of views on a large number of topical issues. Mr. Serpa Soares took the opportunity of his first meeting with Ms. Newstead in her capacity as Legal Adviser to express his gratitude for the excellent cooperation that the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs enjoyed by the U.S. authorities. Mr. Serpa Soares invited Ms. Newstead to visit him in New York and to attend the 2018 informal meeting of the Legal Advisers in the Ministries for Foreign Affairs of the UN Member States in the autumn.

In the margins of his visit to Washington, D.C., Mr. Serpa Soares also met with Mr. Mark Agrast, Executive Director of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) to discuss how ASIL and the UN Office of Legal Affairs could deepen their cooperation. Mr. Serpa Soares also met with Mr. John B. Bellinger III, Adjunct Senior Fellow for International and Security Law at the Council for Foreign Relations to discuss topics of mutual interest.

The mission to Washington, D.C., ended with a visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This visit followed up on a visit to the Museum of February 2016 during which the Legal Counsel agreed with the leadership of the Museum to facilitate the preservation and long-term management of the Archives of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal. Mr. Serpa Soares was very pleased to hear that the technical preservation work is almost completed and that the Archives, which include film and sound footage not previously in the public domain, can soon be made available in electronic form to interested researchers and the general public.