NEWS INDEX Archives 2005 March

Philippine scholar, legal expert win U. of I. achievement awards

Melissa Mitchell, News Editor
217-333-5491; melissa@uiuc.edu

3/1/05

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — An educational leader and policymaker from the Philippines and an authority on international trade law and European Union law are this year’s recipients of international achievement awards presented by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Emil Q. Javier, a former president of the University of the Philippines, has been selected to receive the 2005 Madhuri and Jagdish N. Sheth International Alumni Award for Exceptional Achievement.

The Sheth award recognizes alumni who were citizens of another country at the time of their enrollment at the U. of I., and who have achieved international or national prominence in academia, business, government, science, human welfare, the arts and humanities, or other fields. The award, established in 2000, originated with a gift from the Sheths, longtime friends of the U. of I. who came to the community in 1969 when Jagdish joined the marketing faculty of the College of Commerce and Business Administration (now the College of Business).

William Davey, the Edwin M. Adams Professor in the U. of I. College of Law, will receive the 2005 Distinguished Faculty Award for International Achievement. The award was established in 2001 to recognize distinguished contributions to the honoree’s discipline; a sustained record of scholarly work that reflects the international dimension of the honoree’s areas of expertise; and contributions that have significantly strengthened the international dimension of the university.

Both awards, sponsored by the Office of the Chancellor, Office of the Provost, University of Illinois Alumni Association and International Programs and Studies, will be presented during a campus ceremony on March 2.

Javier, a scholar, administrator and science policymaker who earned a master’s degree in agronomy from the U. of I. in 1964, is being honored for his commitment to eliminating poverty and enhancing food safety. His distinguished academic career has included serving as the 16th president of the University of Philippines, from 1993-1999. He first joined the university’s Los Baños campus in 1969, the same year he received a doctorate from Cornell University. In 1975, he founded the Institute of Plant Breeding at the Baños campus. He became the university’s chancellor in 1979, and in that role, oversaw the creation of five applied research institutes in the College of Agriculture.

He served from 1981-1986 as Minister of Science and Director General for the National Science and Technology Authority of the Philippines. From 1989-1993, he served in Taiwan as director general of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center.

Most recently, Javier served for four years as chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.

Davey, who has been on the U. of I. College of Law faculty since 1984, has taught courses in international trade law, European union law, international business transactions, and corporate/securities law. During a four-year leave, from 1995-1999, he served as director of the Legal Affairs Division of the World Trade Organization.

After graduating from law school, Davey served as a law clerk to Judge J. Edward Lumbard at the U.S. Court of Appeals, New York, and to Associate Justice Potter Stewart of the U.S. Supreme Court. He later worked for the law firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, in Brussels and in New York.

Davey is the author of several books and articles about international trade and European Union law. He also serves on the editorial board of The Journal of International Economic Law (Oxford University); the board of advisers for The Columbia Journal of European Law, and on the faculty editorial board of the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies. He is a member of the American Law Institute and serves on the International Trade Committee of the International Law Association.