MEXICO’S AZTEC EAGLE AWARD BESTOWED
ON UH LAW CENTER PROFESSOR ZAMORA
Accolade Is Mexican Government’s Highest Award to a Foreign
National
HOUSTON, Dec. 5, 2006 — The Decoration of the Order of the
Aztec Eagle, Mexico's highest award given to a foreign national,
has been bestowed upon University of Houston Law Professor Stephen
T. Zamora. The award recognizes Zamora’s dedication to scholarship
and teaching that promotes U.S. and Mexican understanding.
“It’s very gratifying to receive this recognition for
doing something that I love to do—working with Mexican and
U.S. lawyers, judges and law students to increase our understanding
of each other’s legal system,” said Zamora, the Leonard
B. Rosenberg Professor of Law at the UH Law Center. “In my
research and writings, I try to take a critical look at Mexican
law and society, but I hope that I do so with a sense of appreciation
of the complexity and value of the whole, rather than a criticism
of some particular element of Mexican society that I find wanting
because it does not conform to U.S. models.”
Zamora received the award at a ceremony held in Mexico City recently.
In presenting Zamora with the medal, Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto
Derbez cited Zamora’s efforts to promote increased understanding
in the United States about Mexican law and society, as well as increased
understanding in Mexico about U.S. law and society. Zamora has directed
the UH Law Center’s Mexican Legal Studies Program, and has
actively promoted student and faculty exchanges with Mexican law
schools. Zamora also launched a scholarship program that brings
Mexican lawyers to UH for graduate classes, and he is a founding
director of the North American Consortium on Legal Education (NACLE)
to strengthen links between U.S., Mexico and Canadian law schools.
He has also published extensively on Mexican law and U.S. –
Mexican relations, and is the lead author of the leading English-language
treatise on Mexican law.
“The destinies of both the United States and Mexico are linked
not only by geography, but also by increasingly common elements
of culture,” Zamora said. “Still, the legal systems,
politics and social practices of Mexico and the United States are
sufficiently different that misunderstandings often arise and may
translate into unproductive policy choices by private as well as
public actors.”
Past recipients of the Aztec Eagle award include former Texas Governor
Ann Richards, U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd, Cesar Chavez, and Bill
and Melinda Gates, in addition to numerous ambassadors and heads
of state.
For more information on NACLE, please visit www.nacle.org.
For more information on the UH Law Center’s Mexican Legal
Studies Program, please visit http://www.law.uh.edu/nacle/exchange.html.
About the University of Houston
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan
research and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research
centers and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with
corporate, civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse
research university in the country, stands at the forefront of education,
research and service with more than 35,000 students.
For more information about UH visit the universitys Newsroom at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.
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