COMMENCEMENT SPEECH (ENGLISH)

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER
LLM INTERNATIONAL LEGAL STUDIES
COMMENCEMENT SPEECH

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus and inspirer of the values of Georgetown University, used to say that “It is not knowing much, but realizing and relishing things intensively, that contents and satisfies the soul”.

That is exactly how Georgetown’s international students have lived a year in which we have left behind the routine of daily life in our countries to venture with passion down the path of academic knowledge, professional development and personal dreams.

In this stage of transition and hope, the Law Center has been much more than a small campus with modern buildings and distinguished professors. It has been much more that a place that offers the privilege to visit its libraries and to walk through more than a million books. It has been much more than a meeting place of 180 students from almost 60 countries.

This year we have been part of a project that goes further than a training program for lawyers. We have had the luck, perhaps without knowing it, to be part of an academic project that seeks to give sense, direction and coherence to the intellectual work of lawyers in the world, where each one of us is not only a specialist in the Law of our countries but is an international lawyer with a global perspective.

That global outlook that we have learned is not just a final objective for us but rather a way to face the challenges of our profession. Probably "Law Is But the Means, Justice Is the End” is the first phrase that we learn when arriving at Georgetown and there is no doubt that we will continue applying it whatever the area of practice we have chosen. That simple phrase is bound with an ethical perspective of our professional performance. That simple phrase gives us the ideal that we follow, and the dreams for which we fight. In Saint Ignatius’ words: What are our great desires? In that perspective, indeed while it is necessary to worry about the accuracy and reliability of our legal work, contracts and memoranda, the answer to this question is in the dreams and values that motivate us as lawyers who seek and live truth and justice.

The successes obtained this year are not only ours but also belong to our fellow LLMs and, especially, to all those that supported us in the accomplishment of this project. As Italian philosopher Humberto Ecco says: "We are not ables to understand who we are without the views and feelings from others". In this journey we have exchanged views and feelings with friends from different countries, with different interests and personal experiences. I emphasize here the value of our fellow LLMs who during this year have had faced personal difficult situations such as being here without their families, or having their ill parents faraway and not being able to accompany them or even to have experienced the pain to lose one of their parents without being by their side. But life, in its mysterious checks and balances has also given us the joy of sharing with our fellow LLMs some special moments such as the arrival of a son or the decision to get married.

An important part of life with our fellow LLMs during this year has been the opportunity to share the dreams that support any project that is undertaken in this life. Studying at Georgetown was part of a dream, but not only of our dreams but also of the dreams of our parents and other close friends and relatives. For that reason, this ceremony that reunites us today with so much satisfaction is also a symbol of gratefulness for all those that kindly supported us during this year, including for those who passed on, but once also shared our dream to grow professional and personally.

Today, we have already fulfilled the dreams of our parents and now we must leave to face the world carrying the values and ideals that Georgetown has left in us, we must, as was attempted by Saramago’s Father Bartolomeu, “fly with no fuel other than that of human will”, and always look for excellence, truth and justice.

That is the only way we shall be able to responsibly attain new dreams, this time, not only with the dreams from the first day of classes but with the dreams of a better future for our countries and our children.


Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

Jeronimo Carcelen

Washington DC, May 2005