11 pages down. . .

So, I have 11 solid pages of my International Law paper done.  The only problem is that the pages I have done are only the background/history section of the paper.  Now that I have set the factual stage upon which the action of the paper is based, I now have to spend an inordinate amount of time actually producing the action.  What I mean to say in my cryptic sentence is that the history part should be the easy part.  Now, I have to actually put forth a decent survey of a few areas of international law and test the Tibetan Seventeen-Point Agreement against these norms of international law.  The problem, however, is that I am in the midst of taking International Law, yet I have to somehow become enough of an authority on the area of law to write an analytical paper about it.  Something about the ordering here seems a bit wrong.  Fortunately, I think that Judge Ulrich has given us the tools thus far to begin approaching the problem, albeit with a substantial amount of independent research on whatever specific are of the law we have chosen.  Since I have chosen to evaluate the legal validity of the Sino-Tibetan Seventeen-Point Agreement, I will most likely be examining the notions of jus cogens, self-determination of peoples, treaty formation and breach, and probably a little bit about the rules of armed conflict.  All in all, I am learning a ton about international law and Tibetan history in the process.  So, despite the amount of time it is taking to put together, the benefits far outweigh the costs, and I am quite content.

Now, I have to get away from this machine to get ready for the symposium tonight.