On December 10, 2010, in the case Movsesian v. Victoria Versicherung, the Ninth Circuit United States Court of Appeals upheld the validity of a California law which extends the statute of limitations to file claims arising out of life insurance policies issued to Armenian Genocide victims.  Reversing its own August 20, 2009 ruling which had found the California statute to be unconstitutional because it contradicted a U.S. federal policy against the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, the court now found that the law is consistent with a proper exercise of the state's power because "there is no clearly established federal policy forbidding state references to the Armenian Genocide." 

The initial case brought on behalf of the heirs of Armenian Genocide victims was supported by the extensive legal work of Brian S. Kabateck of Kabateck Brown Keller LLP, Mark J. Geragos and Shelley Kaufman of Geragos & Geragos, and Vartkes Yeghiayan of Yeghiayan Law Firm. On the appellate level, four amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs supplementing information and arguments provided to the Court were submitted in support of the positions taken by the Armenian plaintiffs. 

"This is a monumental victory for the Armenian community.   It is a vindication of our history, heritage, and legacy, and, importantly, of the cherished and valuable rights we enjoy under the laws of the United States.  The Armenian Bar Association salutes the excellent work of Messrs. Yeghiayan, Kabateck and Geragos," stated Edvin Minassian, Chair of the Armenian Bar Association.   He added: “David Balabanian, one of the nation’s premier litigators and the first Chair of the Armenian Bar Association, rose again to the challenge in leading Bingham McCutchen’s support of Armenian and constitutional rights.”

Sonya Nersessian, immediate Past Chair of the Armenian Bar Association, welcomed the ruling as well: “While we as Armenian-Americans, and as members of the Armenian Bar Association, are situated in geographically diverse communities, we stand and work as one for the protection of our national rights.  Efforts must continue to set the record straight in the face of the increasing attacks on our history, especially when those attacks come under the guise of American jurisprudence.”

"This case will cast broad and far-reaching effects on all Armenians alike. We have a vested stake in ensuring the proper adjudication of these types of matters which, if they go unchallenged, carry the risk of marginalizing our collective past and jeopardizing our future entitlements,” stated Garo Ghazarian, Vice-Chair of the Armenian Bar Association.

The Armenian Bar Association's amicus brief was organized and undertaken on a pro bono basis by David M. Balabanian, Esq. and his legal team at the international law firm of Bingham McCutchen LLP, which included David B. Salmons, Esq. and Erin S. Conroy, Esq. in the Washington office of the firm. Invaluable assistance on the brief was provided by Kate Nahapetian, Esq. of the Armenian National Committee, Van Z. Krikorian, Esq. of the Armenian Assembly, Dr. Rouben Adalian of Armenian National Institute, and George Shirinian, Executive Director of the Zoryan Institute. The effort to coordinate the participation of all the amici on the brief was undertaken by Past Chair, Sonya Nersessian, Esq.  Armenian Bar Association's Rights Watch Committee Chair Saro Kerkonian also made crucial contributions.  The brief was joined by the Armenian National Committee of America, the Zoryan Institute for Contemporary Armenian Research and Documentation, Inc., and the International Association of Genocide Scholars.  The Armenian Bar Association’s amicus brief provided documentation of multiple instances in which federal entities used and embraced the term "Armenian Genocide.” Mr. Balabanian’s efforts helped to establish for the court that there is no established federal policy against the legislature’s use of the term “Armenian Genocide.”

Attorney General, now Governor-elect, Edmund Gerry Brown Jr. led an amicus brief on behalf of the State of California arguing that the court’s interpretation of conflict preemption under the foreign affairs doctrine was unprecedented and overly-expansive and that it was improper to hold that the mere words used in a state statute may invalidate the statute under principles of preemption.  Congressman Adam B. Schiff filed his own amicus brief and further clarified the lack of congressional or executive branch actions to preempt state action on insurance claims or statutes of limitations relating to claims arising from the loss of Armenian lives and property from 1875-1923.  The amicus brief of human rights organizations EarthRights International and the Center for Constitutional Rights presented additional arguments advancing the contention that mere lack of consistent use of the term "Armenian Genocide" by the federal government does not constitute sufficient grounds to claim the existence of a federal policy against use of the term.   

On September 23, 2009, in the aftermath of the decision declaring the California statute invalid, the Armenian Bar Association held a town hall community forum on this issue.  Harut Sassounian, publisher of the California Courier, moderated the discussion between Mark Geragos (plaintiffs' counsel), Steve Dadaian (ANCA and Armenian Bar attorney) and Seto Boyadjian (ANCA National Board).  Through these types of efforts the public has remained informed and engaged in the process.

Nearly sixteen months after the initial negative court ruling on the matter, the diligent efforts and collaboration of the plaintiffs' counsel and the amici curiae resulted in the December 10, 2010 positive court decision. The defendant insurance company may now try to persuade the entire Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the case or request the U.S. Supreme Court to review it.  Otherwise, the case will proceed and the plaintiffs will have the opportunity to obtain redress for their claims against the defendants. 

This marks the latest success achieved as a result of collaboration among leading Armenian organizations, truth-seeking friends of the Armenian community and advocates of humanity.

"While these cases are litigated on an individual level and do not speak for all Armenians everywhere, the stakes are high for so many of us. When the time comes, we must, do and will continue to remain united.  The Armenian Bar Association intends to help assure the proper legal course in these matters in light of its being the legal and non-partisan entity for all Armenians," stated Chairman Minassian.

"We will continue our collaborative efforts with all attorneys and entities in the common cause of achieving recognition of and reparations for the Armenian Genocide," stated Chairman Minassian.

Board of Governors

Armenian Bar Association

Armenian Bar Association Mid-Year Meeting October 9, 2010

Kathryn L. Ossian

Miller Canfield

Detroit

The Social Networking Phenomenon

Numbers Din't lie

Some Terminology

The Benefits pof Social Networking

The Real-Time Web

Real-Time News

Real-Time Damage Control

Real-Time Politics

Individual profile Example, etc...

U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in a unanimous opinion authored by retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, David Souter, affirmed the District Court's decision that literature denying Armenian Genocide will not be included in Massachusetts human rights curriculum. A copy of the decision has been posted for your review.

The Armenian Bar Association had filed an Amicus Curiae Brief in support of the Massachusetts Board of Education, under the guidance of my predecessor, our former Chair Sonya Nersessian. We are grateful for her leadership and relentless efforts . We  are also thankful to our partners who joined our brief: Armenian National Committee of America; Irish Immigration Center; Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action; The Genocide Education Project and the Zoryan Institute.

The ABA would like to address our special and sincere thanks to attorneys Mark Fleming and Rachel Gurvich and the Law Firm of Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr, LLP, for their great work, time and efforts.

We would like to individually thank Kate Nahabetian of ANCA for her contributions and  George Shirinian of the Zoryan Institute for his participation.

Special thanks are due to our own Rights Watch Chair Saro Kerkonian; Former Chair Frank Zerunyan and Genocide Project Chair Prof. Ann Lousin.

ABA would also recognize the efforts of and thank Edward Barshak, Esq., of Sugarman, Rogers, Barshak and Cohen who served as co-counsel on the Amicus Brief.

Additional thanks are also due to the following who have also contributed to this tangible and significant victory: The Armenian Assembly of America; Attorney General of Massachusetts Martha Coakley; Asst. Attorney General William Parker; The International Association of Genocide Scholars; Prof. Erwin Chemerinksy and Arnold Rosenfeld, Esq.

While we celebrate this well deserved and justified legal victory, we must never forget the victims in whose name and honorable memory we all worked.  United, we will always remain vigilant and ready  to successfully face current and future legal challenges.

With my deepest gratitude,
Edvin Minassian
Chair, Armenian Bar Association

Turkey, Israel and the Moment of Truth

By Raffi K. Hovannisian

YEREVAN, Armenia

Today's Turkey is the denialist bearer of the Ottoman execution of the great genocide and national dispossession of the Armenian people nearly a century ago. Israel, the carrier-state of the Shoah, which followed a generation later, has long been unconscionably complicit in the realpolitik relegation of the Armenian loss of life and homeland to the footnotes of inconvenient, expendable crimes against humanity.

Historically so different, the Turkish perpetrator and the Jewish victim, they have in the modern period surmounted their asymmetries to forge a strategic compact, where might trumps right and the national interest, however narrow, stands uber alles. They have grown alike.

The demeanor of state, however, has thankfully been balanced by citizens of conscience both in Turkey and the Jewish world who, in the face of self-important narratives on the Turkish nation's infallible greatness or the Holocaust's uniqueness, have come to grasp the imperative to face history, take responsibility, and draw the lesson of genocide's universality. These righteous Muslims and Jews have not yet been able to carry the day.

Instead, it is those such as Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of the neo-Ottoman variety whose duplicitous bluster is driving their jaded vision of reasserted regional hegemony and imperial relevance. Only this time, these deniers of genocide are pitching concepts of freedom, human rights and international law to attain the depths of their purpose.

Israel's blockade of Gaza is wrong and requires resolution. Palestine, like mountainous Karabagh, has earned its right of sovereign statehood.

But the essence and rhetoric of the provocation, carefully crafted in Ankara, to precipitate an Israeli action upon the flotilla, betrays the true intent of Turkey's leaders: (1) to pursue the deception of their own clout and aggrandizement at the expense of regional peace-making; (2) to mask their effective abuse as pawns of the very people to whom they seek to break through in the name of Islamic solidarity; and (3) to gloss over comfortably their own unlawful blockade of Armenia since 1993.

They represent a state that wiped clean an entire civilization in committing genocide against the Armenians - as well as the Assyrians, Pontic Greeks and later, the Kurds - and has not found the political courage or moral fortitude to accept, atone and make just restitution for it. They represent a state that, far from seeking redemption and true conciliation, has brought its embargoes and other crimes of war to the remnant Armenian republic that miraculously survived the genocide. They represent a state that was formed on the forcible exclusion of the Armenians from their ancestral patrimony and which today outlaws any mention of genocide and condemns to a deep-state death those such as Hrant Dink, who seek peace and closure through veritas.

And now, as these "moderate Islamists"-turned-tyrants turn to jockeying with Israel for their own designs and the tallying of petty points, the question has been raised.

In Jewish circles and beyond, the collective conscience is being refreshed and appears gradually to be climbing out of an Orwellian memory hole. People are beginning to confess their recollection of Turkey's genocidal record. In terms of paradigms and shifts, this is welcome news: In every evil, there is a good, as the Armenian proverb goes.

But for this seminal case to close the circle in full reconciliation with history, its reason must be whole, its realization cathartic.

The Armenian genocide in the century past and the security of the survivor state with its capital here must never, ever be allowed to become a political football for selective use by two erstwhile allies to sort out their relations and the contents of their closets.

The people of Turkey would do well to rein in, and then reverse, their double-talking thrill-seekers, whose contemporary policies are the direct inheritance of Mehmed Talaat, Ismail Enver and Ahmed Jemal, the Young Turk triumvirate that masterminded the genocide and the ultimate occupation of the Armenian Plateau. But that's really up to them.

As for the United States, Europe and even Israel, this sordid affair might just be their penultimate chance to recognize a nation-killing by its name, to bring the perpetrating state to justice, and finally to guarantee the entitlements to restitution and reparation of the victims and their living progeny.

Not as a favor, nor an instrument of self-serving leverage. But as a matter of truth and equity - simple, overdue, unrequited - and nothing more.