[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 2]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 2276-2277]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    IN MEMORY OF EDWARD R. CUMMINGS

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 28, 2006

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life of Edward R. 
Cummings of Maryland and lament his untimely passing. Mr. Speaker, we 
all know of the many unsung heroes that make this great institution 
work, the staff and advisers who labor in obscurity but without whom we 
could not do our work to represent the American people. It is even more 
so in the Executive Branch, where an individual can spend a whole 
career and never be introduced to the wider public, laboring not for 
the recognition that drives so many in the public sphere but instead 
toiling to uphold the public interest and to serve his country. Our 
government cannot function without such individuals and it is they who 
can bring order and sanity to an ever changing kaleidoscope of figures 
who pass through the United States Government as elections occur and 
administrations change.
   Mr. Speaker, yesterday this Nation lost such a person, a remarkable 
public servant and a remarkable human being, Edward R. Cummings. Mr. 
Cummings served his country for over 30 years, first with the U.S. Army 
and then with the U.S. Department of State. Mr. Cummings earned a 
bachelor's degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1972, and then 
became an active military officer in 1972, where he completed training 
to become an airborne ranger, one of this Nation's elite forces. 
Instead of what surely would have been a distinguished career in armed 
combat, Mr. Cummings took another path and with the support of the U.S. 
military, entered George Washington University Law School. He studied a 
variety of subjects that were directly relevant to legal work in the 
international sphere, such as international law, Chinese law, human 
rights law, diplomatic and consular law, and United Nations law, and 
served on the G.W. international law journal. In 1975, he graduated 
first in his class of 317 students.
   Mr. Cummings was on active duty with the U.S. Army until 1979, 
graduating from judge advocate general's school, and serving in the 
Office of the Judge Advocate General where he represented the 
Department of Defense at a number of international negotiations related 
to the Law of War. He remained in the Army Reserve from 1979 to 2000, 
assigned to the War Crimes and Prisoners of War Branch of the Office of 
the Judge Advocate General. He retired as a lieutenant colonel.
  In 1979, because of his distinguished representation of the Defense 
Department and his exceptional contributions to the U.S. delegations in 
which he participated, Mr. Cummings was invited to join the Office of 
the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State where, over the 
course of twenty five years, he served as an attorney and adviser to 
numerous U.S. officials throughout the Government. Among other 
positions, he was the Assistant Legal Adviser for Politico-Military 
Affairs, Assistant Legal Adviser for Nonproliferation, Assistant Legal 
Adviser for Arms Control and Verification, and Counselor for Legal 
Affairs at the U.S. Mission in Geneva. From 2000 to the present, he has 
served as the U.S. Head of Delegation to negotiations relating to the 
Convention on Conventional Weapons. Appointed to the Senior Executive 
Service in 1987, Mr. Cummings has received numerous awards for superior 
service to the Department of State and has written on such subjects as 
the law of belligerent occupation, war crimes, arms control, 
international humanitarian law, and extradition.
  But this description of his career does not do justice to his 
accomplishments. Last year, after he was diagnosed with the pancreatic 
cancer that killed him yesterday, George Washington University Law 
School organized a symposium entitled Lawyers and War in honor of Mr. 
Cummings, which was held on September 30, 2005. Mr. Cummings was 
fortunate not only to hear a set of knowledgeable remarks, but to hear 
the gratitude of his colleagues and proteges and to reflect on his 
amazing set of accomplishments. Whether it was negotiating status of 
forces agreements to protect our troops abroad, helping draft the first 
set of comprehensive sanctions against South Africa during the 
apartheid era, supporting and then leading negotiations to control the 
use of conventional weapons that might cause unnecessary suffering, or 
aiding in the positive developments in international human rights and 
international humanitarian law, Mr. Cummings made an invaluable 
contribution to this nation and to humankind.
  Let me just cite three accomplishments that can be directly related 
to Mr. Cummings that may not be his most important but have special 
significance to some of my colleagues in this body. First, Mr. Cummings 
was instrumental in fashioning the compromise that allowed the United 
States to become a party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on 
the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed 
conflict. For those who did not follow that debate, most countries 
around the world wanted to ban the recruitment of any individual under 
the age of 18. However, because the United States recruits students in 
high school, the U.S. military insisted that the age be reduced to 17. 
This position put the United States in the posture of preventing an 
international consensus and seeming to be in league with those who were 
not committed to banning this terrible abuse at all. It was Mr. 
Cummings who originated the idea of allowing voluntary recruitment of 
17 year olds but not allowing them in combat until they were 18, 
creating an international consensus that put the focus where it always 
should have been, on militias that conscript 12, 13 and 14 year olds.
   Mr. Cummings also worked for decades on enhancing the substance and 
image of the laws of war. One life long accomplishment in this area was 
the recent decision by the countries that are party to the Geneva 
Conventions

[[Page 2277]]

to create a new symbol in addition to the red cross and red crescent to 
allow the Israeli society, the Magen David Adom, to become an official 
member of the Red Cross community. This success, which will do much to 
erase a small but important irritant in this country's relation to the 
International Committee on the Red Cross, was due in large part to Mr. 
Cummings 20 year dedication to achieving this end.
  Another of his major accomplishments was his success in persuading 
the international community to agree on the extension of the 
Conventional Weapons Convention to all forms of armed conflict, whether 
international or internal in character. It has been in the savage 
internal armed conflicts of past decades that the civilian population 
has suffered most from the indiscriminate use of conventional weapons, 
and Mr. Cummings efforts will help to mitigate and limit this 
lamentable carnage.
  These three examples of a much deeper and richer career represent all 
that was exceptional about Mr. Cummings' service to this country. Using 
his full grasp of the complex issues he dealt with, his deft 
understanding of the U.S. military and the mechanisms of government, 
his keen eye for cutting through the issues to find a way through 
controversy, his strong personal relationships with individuals across 
our government and around the world, and his unwavering commitment to 
accomplish his mission, Mr. Cummings was able to accomplish these three 
difficult goals, thereby increasing both stature and national security 
of the United States. There are countless other successes of this sort 
which would take up pages of this record if they were described in 
full.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Cummings was an extraordinary human being. 
His colleagues and friends speak personally and movingly about his 
commitment to others as individuals and as attorneys. If the law 
remains a place where law school is but a starting point and it is the 
learning from one's colleagues that is the most important basis for 
success, Mr. Cummings has served as ``master'' to many ``apprentices'' 
who are now serving their own distinguished careers in many walks of 
life (although Mr. Cummings would have dismissed those terms, calling 
everyone ``colleagues''). This is a legacy that will last beyond Mr. 
Cummings final horizon. And with his personal warmth and his many 
avocations such as opera, mountain climbing and skiing, Mr. Cummings 
was admired by all who knew him.
  Mr. Speaker, it is tragic that just at a time when Mr. Cummings was 
considering moving on to a new stage in his career and life, he was 
diagnosed in December 2004 with an untreatable form of pancreatic 
cancer which took him from us just yesterday. From all reports, his 
efforts to combat this illness and to show grace in the face of death 
itself demonstrated once again why Mr. Cummings is respected and loved, 
and our heart goes out to his wife and life partner, Clair, during this 
difficult time.
   While Mr. Cummings was a clear example to all of us of a life well-
lived, his tragic end is still a loss for all of us. We can only be 
thankful that this fellow traveler was able to do so much for his 
friends and acquaintances and for his country while he was with us.

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