As the Editors-in-Chief of Ecology Law Quarterly and the Berkeley Journal of International Law, we welcome you to this special issue in honor of Professor David D. Caron ’83. This issue reflects a nearly year-long joint effort of law students in both journals coming together to publish scholarship that reflects Professor Caron’s dual, and often complimentary, exploration of pressing issues in international and environmental law.
David Caron had an enormous impact on Berkeley Law School and on the field of international law. He is terribly missed. A wonderful conference was held on September 14 and 15, 2018, at Berkeley Law School to honor, remember, and celebrate David. Hundreds of people attended a moving memorial service where colleagues and former students paid tribute. A conference brought together top scholars, practitioners, and judges from the field of international law. The papers from this conference are contained in this volume.
The title for our conference comes from a 2012 talk David Caron delivered at the American Society of International Law Conference when he was president of the society. Titled “Confronting Complexity, Valuing Elegance,” David urged that we approach complex legal problems with the aim of arriving at elegant solutions.
David and I were friends for over 30 years. On the professional side, I followed him as Chair of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration and he followed me as President of the American Society for International Law. We planned many symposia and programs together. One of the things we agreed on was that luncheon talks should be a bit light—substance with humor, “medicine with a spoonful of sugar.” David delivered such talks—as he did so many things—elegantly and (apparently) effortlessly
