The anthropologist Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
And so, a small group of Illinois lawyers interested in international affairs was an agent of change recently, at a statewide meeting, in Chicago, of the Illinois State Bar Association.
I serve as Chair of this group of 25 attorneys from around the state; we are known as the International and Immigration Law Section council. Our group drafted a resolution decrying Russia’s actions against Ukraine in violation of human rights, the rule of law, and the UN Charter. In October, our resolution appeared in the State Bar Association’s weekly feature “The Bar News”, but identified as the view of our group only, and NOT that of the State Bar Association.
On December 9th, before the State Bar Association’s assembly, I urged my fellow lawyers to speak out with a strong voice against Russia’s atrocities. And then the Assembly voted, in a booming, overwhelming voice vote, to adopt our group’s resolution as the position of the entire state bar association.
The next morning, the seven of us in attendance at our group’s meeting resolved to keep the momentum going, to keep using our voice to bring attention to wrongs occurring around the world. We accomplished the adoption of our Resolution with doggedness and determination, and in the face of some opponents who said that this Ukraine business was not our business.
In Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, the ghost of Jacob Marley, wringing its hands, told Ebeneezer Scrooge, “Mankind was my business.” And so it is: our business.
