Navy Helps American Ideas Reach Mongolia

In the five years since the fall of communism in Mongolia, steady progress has been made toward adopting civilian and military justice systems based on democratic principles, said a law clerk who recently returned from the Asian nation.

Beth Lin, a law clerk in Woodland Hills for U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Harry Pregerson, and four military officers spent a week in August teaching a seminar on American law, human rights and military justice to their counterparts in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar.

The program, sponsored by the U.S. Navy, is designed to present American legal systems to emerging democracies, Lin said.

“The Mongolian officials were not interested in a wholesale adoption of the American system,” Lin said, “but they were interested in learning about the justice system and what parts they could adopt and implement in Mongolia.”

During the seminar, Lin taught sessions on search and seizure, privilege against self-incrimination and witness protection programs, among other legal issues.

“The Mongolian government and military are really committed to advancing human rights, and I wasn’t expecting that,” Lin said. “They are committed to making democracy work there. They were open-minded and interested in what we do in the United States.”

Beyond that, Lin said, her hosts were “incredibly hospitable and interested in sharing their culture and learning about U.S. culture.”

The trip to Mongolia was not Lin’s first foray into Asian legal issues. As an undergraduate and law student at Yale University, she worked for Human Rights Watch/Asia and Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, both New York-based watchdog groups.

During the summer of 1994, Lin spent a month in South China interviewing migrant laborers on human rights abuses by police and employers.

Lin called the U.S. Navy’s program “progressive” and a “good way of advancing human rights in a country during a difficult time of transition.”

“I don’t think the American public knows that the military runs this type of program,” Lin said. “If they knew more about it, they would support it, because it is meeting an important need.”