May 8, 2003
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.- Jordan Lang, a senior at Amherst College, has been awarded a J. William Fulbright Fellowship for postgraduate study in the Netherlands. Lang will study the International Criminal Court and its place in European-American relations in the International School for Humanities and Social Science at the University of Amsterdam. Lang is the son of Robert and Maxyne Lang of New York.

"Europe and America stand at a crossroads," Lang wrote in his application, "and the recent debate surrounding the International Criminal Court has become a lightning rod for European-American relations."

Lang plans to explore how the long era of trans-Atlantic cooperation that followed the Second World War ended with the end of the Cold War, asking questions such as, "Does Europe see the United States as a loyal ally, or a nation preventing Europe from standing on its own? What are the similarities and differences between European and American world views?" American nonparticipation in the ICC-based in The Hague-offers concrete answers.

A major in law, jurisprudence and social thought and political science at Amherst, Lang wrote a column for The Indicator, a college magazine, was a board member of the Foreign Policy Forum, and treasurer of the Spanish Language House. He was also active in the Parliamentary Debate Society and intramural squash at Amherst and medieval court tennis during his junior year at Oxford University. He plans a career in international law.

Congress created the Fulbright Program in 1946 to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. Senator J. William Fulbright, sponsor of the legislation, viewed scholarship as an alternative to armed conflict. Today the Fulbright Program, the federal government's premier scholarship program, funded by an annual congressional appropriation and contributions from other participating countries, allows Americans to study or conduct research in over 100 nations.

Lang is one of five Amherst seniors who received Fulbright grants this year.

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