Jeffrey Lee GERTLER

OBITUARY JEFFREY LEE GERTLER January 18, 2005 After a recurrence of brain cancer, despite the best of care at the Clinique de Genolier, Switzerland, and the constant support of family, colleagues and friends, his courage and morale undiminished, on January 18, 2005 he was taken from his wife, Ann Stewart Gertler; their sons Marin (fiancee Rocio Lastras) and Joshua; his parents, Maynard and Ann Straus Gertler; brothers and sisters-in-law, Michael (JoAnn Jaffe), Alfred (Kathryn MacRae), Franklin (Catherine Oliver) and Edward (Mary-Jo Lough); sisters-in-law, Cynthia von Maerestetten and Rowena Stewart; mother-in-law Thisbe Stewart; nieces, Lisa and Jardena; nephews, Mark, Maxim, Will, Leo, Nicholas, John Nathaniel and Theo; beloved family member, Doris Winkler;and his extended family in Ottawa, Toronto, New York, California, England and Scotland who survive him to celebrate his fifty-one productive years. He was born in Lancaster County, PA, among the Plain People, where his college-teaching parents chose to farm. But his education was to begin at Darwin House, Cambridge, England (when they resumed research interrupted by service in the wartime administrations and army (Maynard) of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman) - to be continued largely at St. George's School, Montreal. His further development was associated with training institutes in non-violence and peace research, fostered by the Canadian Peace Research Institute and sponsored by the Canadian Friends Service Committee and the Canadian National Commission of UNESCO. He was a "resource person" for the 1970 and 1971 high school peace workshops which took place at Grindstone Island on Big Rideau Lake, Portland, ON, the former summer home of Admiral Sir Charles Edmund Kingsmill (first director of the Royal Canadian Navy) and his family, and loaned by his heirs for that purpose. Jeffrey's professional skills were acquired at Swarthmore College, PA, by a BA, with emphasis on contemporary political economy, history and French (Universite de Grenoble), by study at the Institute of Comparative International Law, Paris, on Regulation of International Business Transactions, by a JD at the University of San Diego, CA, an LLM from Georgetown University, Washington, DC, and by work with the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, the US International Trade Commission, and the Office of the United States Trade Representative, among others. A member of the California and District of Columbia bars and of the American Society for International Law, he entered his latest field of activity through applications to United Nations (UN) and UN-affiliated agencies. Invited to Geneva by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), he was employed by them in 1988, and stayed on when the GATT evolved into the WTO in 1995. As Senior Counsellor in the Legal Affairs Division, he was active in the elaboration of dispute settlement procedures, in panels pertaining to the admission of countries, such as China, to the WTO, in work, duty travel and conferences on four continents, including university-sponsored speaking engagements on various aspects of globalization: human rights, labour, environment and living conditions, as well as trade. Jeffrey gravitated toward work in the public interest by an early internship with the Environmental Defense Fund of Washington, DC, and by a spell as Special Assistant to the Rector of the UN University of Tokyo. Not incidentally, his two non-professional affiliations in 1988 at the time of joining the GATT were with the Lawyers Alliance for Nuclear Arms Control, and Friends of the Earth. He delighted in sailing off Norfolk, England, on Lakes Ontario and Champlain, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Chesapeake with his wife Ann and boys, from their first home at Shady Side, near Annapolis, MD, and Lake Geneva (Leman). He loved life and knew well what to do with it, was an enthusiastic skiier and swimmer, an accomplished photographer, a keen gardener and family farmer, in Ontario, and an excellent cook. At various times he played the recorder, violin and guitar. Family meant the world to him, and his children were his greatest joy. Facing final illness, his supreme regret was the prospect that he might not be around to share in their lives, to support them, and to help celebrate their accomplishments. The warmest of farewells were given him at the Temple de Genolier above Lake Geneva, January 24, on a sunny day, emblazoned by fresh snow and invigorated by the mountain air. In addition to his wife, sons and brothers, some 150 friends and colleagues were in attendance, many from the WTO, the UN family, the International School of Geneva, the UN High Commission for Refugees, Femmes Pour la Paix, and the International Peace Bureau. Following cremation, Jeffrey's remains will be interred near his home in Divonne les Bains, France. Contact with the family in Montreal may be had through Franklin Gertler, at Aldred Building, 507 Place d'Armes, Suite 1200, Montreal, QC, Canada H2Y 2W8; telephone (514) 842-0748; e-mail: franklin@gertlerlex.ca, or Maynard and Ann Gertler, at 482 Strathcona Avenue, Westmount, QC, Canada H3Y 2X1; telephone (514) 933-7913; fax (514) 933-1702; e-mail: ann.maynard.gertler@videotron.ca">href="http://ann.maynard.gertler">ann.maynard.gertler@videotron.ca (and Box #58, Williamstown, ON, Canada K0C 2J0; telephone (613) 347-3505). Published in the Montreal Gazette on 3/26/2005