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51 chapter฀4 Learning to Love the Law of the Sea William P. George For many if not most doctoral students, the choice of a dissertation topic is a matter not only of importance but, until the choice becomes clear, also of obscurity. At least it was for me. Late in my first year of doctoral studies in the mid-1980s, I had yet to settle on a general topic that would shape my remaining coursework and outside research. Having spent four years in Zambia , and with a background in philosophy and theology primarily in the Catholic tradition, I entered the University of Chicago Divinity School’s program in ethics and society with vague ideas about exploring natural law, property rights, or especially some aspect of international economic justice—perhaps the ethics of international debt. But nothing seemed quite right. Then one evening as I was thumbing through political science indexes in search of material for a paper on military intervention on humanitarian grounds, I chanced upon entries on a very different topic: the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereafter “Law of the Sea”). This was a topic about which I knew next to nothing at the time. Yet almost out of the blue it suddenly, silently dawned on me that this would be—not could be, but would be—the topic of my dissertation. Not everything was clear. There was of course much to learn and much to do. But I had found my general topic, I was sure. In the months that followed, I began to see striking continuities and discontinuities between this experience and what had gone before. Despite my lack of knowledge about the Law of the Sea, the topic did not emerge from nowhere. Rather it embraced, in one way or another, the very subject matter (natural law, property rights, international economic justice, and more) that I had been mulling over for some time.1 But there was at least this point of discontinuity: Before I entered the Regenstein Library that evening I did not have a dissertation topic, and when I left I did. This single, simple experience pointed me in new directions, leading to intellectual landscapes (or seascapes) and personal relationships I could not have anticipated even days or weeks before. Among my many memories of that period, two pertain especially to the aim of this chapter and the broader theme of emergent catholicity. One was the attempt at what Mark Morelli calls “horizonal diplomacy”—the movement back and forth between significantly different horizons.2 Within a few months of the library epiphany, I found myself immersed in things international—law, relations, economics— through courses, readings, and discussion groups. A political scientist (later 52 William P. George one of my dissertation readers) with an interest in international cooperation introduced me to game theory and to the then burgeoning work on international regimes.3 Twice a week for one term I trudged across the Midway— a tract of land that separates the law school from the divinity school and the main campus of the University of Chicago—to attend a class in international law. Later I frequently made the same trip to settle on the sixth floor of D’Angelo Law Library, where texts and journals in international law are shelved. Especially at first, it was like moving into an uncharted world. In fact, it was while reading a text on international regimes that first I came across the inscription found on the margins of ancient maps: “Cave! Hic dragones” (Beware ! Here be dragons). Crossing over from theology, where I felt at home, to international law, where I did not, was a little like reaching the edge of my intellectual map. Yet deeper down it seemed not so totally different—for was this not, I asked myself, still ethics (my field of study) writ large? And might there not be something theological in it after all? A second memory relevant to this chapter was the reaction of one person somewhat removed from academic life when I told him, in response to his query, that I was writing a dissertation on the Law of the Sea. “You mean the Holy See?” he asked. For in his mind, what else could a divinity school dissertation be about? In misunderstandings there are meanings to be found. And so this misunderstanding of a single word is worth keeping in mind, for it gets to the heart of this chapter as a contribution to this volume...

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