When the dialog ended, I merely stared into area, surprised. I will need to have misheard the official from the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth. This may’t be taking place to me, I assumed.
“We want you to accompany Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on her journey to Mongolia this fall to help democratic reforms,” he mentioned. It was summer time 2000, and I had simply returned from Mongolia, the place I helped develop the nation’s first justice system strategic plan.
I used to be astonished and elated by the chance—however not intimidated—as I had first met Justice O’Connor in Bulgaria in 1994, the place I used to be serving as a professional bono rule of regulation liaison for the Central and East European Regulation Initiative, a venture of the American Bar Affiliation. Justice O’Connor, the primary member of CEELI’s government board, was in Bulgaria for its 1994 board assembly.
On the suggestion of Homer Moyer Jr. and Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte, CEELI was based after the autumn of the Berlin Wall to help democratic transitions overseas by offering U.S. authorized experience in judicial reform, strengthening of authorized frameworks, and selling accountability and transparency in governance. USAID was its principal funder with extra help from the Division of State.
Inside its first decade, CEELI mobilized greater than 5,000 American legal professionals, judges and authorized students, serving as unpaid volunteers, to work in former communist international locations alongside their counterparts—native authorized pioneers dedicated to advancing the rule of regulation. Collectively, they helped enhance the lives of thousands and thousands throughout greater than two dozen nations.
Justice O’Connor was deeply dedicated to CEELI’s historic mission. Over greater than a decade, she by no means missed a single board assembly.
Working with CEELI grew to become my ardour, main me to volunteer for 5 years. Over that point, Justice O’Connor and I developed each knowledgeable and private friendship. We met usually on the Supreme Courtroom and shared meals collectively together with her husband, John, in Washington, D.C., at their Arizona house and in my hometown, San Francisco.
I used to be thrilled to return to Mongolia. After the period of Genghis Khan, Mongolia had almost grow to be forgotten. That modified within the Nineteen Nineties with the collapse of communism, which hurled Mongolia again onto the world stage. Mongolians have been not the one ones who knew how stunningly lovely their distant nation was.
When Justice O’Connor and John arrived in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, their first request was to go to the countryside. That didn’t shock me, since I knew Justice O’Connor can be extra at house roaming the hills amongst wandering cattle than whirling round Ulaanbaatar in a Russian-built vehicle.
It was throughout this journey to Mongolia that I acquired to know John properly. He and Justice O’Connor have been remarkably related—exceptionally clever and lighthearted when off responsibility. Though a nationally distinguished lawyer, John, like Justice O’Connor, by no means let titles intrude with friendships or skilled relationships. His self-confidence was important to their relationship. When others heaped reward on Justice O’Connor, he would remind her that she was as soon as a cowgirl who rode horses and swam in a cattle tank. Regardless of how usually he mentioned it, she at all times laughed.
U.S. Supreme Courtroom Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (heart) and Mary Noel Pepys (proper) pose with an area man and a camel in Mongolia in 2000. (Picture courtesy of Mary Noel Pepys)
On our first day, our driver took us on a countryside tour. As we drove via the open panorama, Justice O’Connor lit up on the sight of Mongolian cowboys with their lassos.
“The horses make me really feel at house,” she mentioned, pointing to 1 within the distance. “That reddish-brown one appears to be like like Chico.” He was her favourite horse on her household’s ranch.
To find out how nomadic cowboys reside, I prompt we go to a household residing in a ger— a Mongolian yurt. Although uninvited, I reassured them that in nomadic cultures like Mongolia, strangers are at all times welcomed.
As we approached, a swish girl emerged from her ger and launched herself as Altansarnai. There was no have to determine us past being Individuals—nomadic Mongolians measure standing by livestock, not titles.
Altansarnai invited us into her ger and supplied lunch. What regarded stark from the surface dazzled us inside. The flooring and partitions have been coated with vibrantly coloured rugs and materials in stately jewel tones. Above the ger hung a facet of uncooked mutton—saved there for lack of refrigeration. Altansarnai introduced it inside and whacked it into small items. Beside the wood range sat a container of cow dung, which she used to warmth each her ger and our meal.
With assist from our driver, we requested her opinion of elections in Mongolia. She eagerly described the current presidential race, concluding, “There’s a sanctity in freely voting for the candidate of your alternative.” Justice O’Connor and I sighed.
Individuals usually take as a right rights handed to them on a silver platter.
On our return to Ulaanbaatar, Justice O’Connor grew curious as we handed a village with a modest courthouse and three camels close by. I described its inside from a previous go to: one courtroom, a shared workplace for 3 judges, a hallway with benches—and no restroom. “You imply the courthouse has its personal outhouse?” John quipped. All of us laughed, picturing robed judges trudging via snow to a shack midtrial.
Again on the lodge, Justice O’Connor reviewed her 10-page schedule selling democratic reforms: quite a few briefings with U.S. and Mongolian governmental officers, a keynote at a rule of regulation convention, a roundtable with Mongolia’s ladies trailblazers, a seminar with regulation college students, press conferences and official dinners. Exhausting for John and me—however not for Justice O’Connor.
On our final day in Mongolia, she requested if we may take a camel experience. She needed to be joking. “A camel experience,” she repeated calmly, as if asking for a cup of tea.
I had labored exhausting to accommodate not solely the wants of Mongolians but in addition to anticipate Justice O’Connor’s pursuits. A camel experience was not amongst them, and arranging it on the final minute was unattainable.
Nevertheless, Justice O’Connor was just like the E.F. Hutton advert from the Eighties—when she spoke, individuals listened.
Dressed as we have been, we set off to experience the camels. As mine lurched ahead to face, I shrieked, sure I used to be about to be catapulted to the bottom. Justice O’Connor, alternatively, sat tall and regular, her hand resting casually on the saddle. As soon as a cowgirl, at all times a cowgirl.
Twenty years later, throughout my final go to with Justice O’Connor at her retirement house in Phoenix—her dementia seeping into our restricted dialog—I reminisced about our journey to Mongolia, her love for CEELI and her dedication to the common significance of the rule of regulation.
She praised the 5,000 American legal professionals and judges for his or her unwavering dedication to advancing the rule of regulation overseas, describing their volunteerism as an indicator of American citizenship and an inspiring act of selflessness that made a significant distinction within the lives of others.
One can solely surprise what Justice O’Connor would make of the worldwide backsliding of the rule of regulation, now compounded by USAID’s dismantling. Figuring out her as I did, I’m assured she would urge us to press on—at house and overseas—to withstand authoritarianism, defend human rights and uphold the rule of regulation. Let’s decide to doing simply that.
Since 1993, Mary Noel Pepys has helped to advance the rule of regulation in additional than 45 international locations, specializing in worldwide authorized and judicial reform. Extra just lately, she has centered on the rule of regulation and judicial independence in america via the Alliance for American Rule of Regulation, a community of worldwide rule of regulation practitioners.
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