By Phil Roberts, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Wyoming

This article first appeared in "As You Like It," Arts and Sciences College Newsletter, University of Wyoming, December 2004.

Two small sailboats flit past the jetty as a couple of landlocked oil tanker ships float slowly toward the massive oil platforms far out in the Caspian Sea. As I sit watching the scene from my office on the third floor of a historic downtown office building in the center of Baku, Azerbaijan, it occurs to me that such a view is unlikely for a historian of the American West and Wyoming whose primary research interests ought to be a half a world and 11 time zones away. Around me are the sounds of traffic jams and street hawkers in this city of almost three million tucked onto the "bird’s beak" of land at the extreme southeastern edge of what some call the far edge of Europe.

During the summer of 2004, I was in Azerbaijan for the second time in four months and my mission was not history or historical research. I was part of a five-person team of lawyers helping two private universities develop what will become the first two post-graduate law schools in Azerbaijan. The project was part of the American Bar Association’s Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA-CEELI), a program begun by the nation’s largest organization of attorneys in the early 1990s as a way to provide advice and assistance to the former republics in the Soviet Union and other east European countries. (I was, by no means, the first faculty member from the University of Wyoming to participate in ABA-CEELI. In the middle 1990s, UW law professor John Burman worked in Russia in a CEELI-sponsored program, starting legal clinics in major former-Soviet cities and, judging from conversations I’ve had with those working in those programs today, he has become a venerated legend).

But our particular project involved legal education and my primary objective was to develop the law curriculum for the new law schools. While it is a requirement for participation in the CEELI programs, it was not my law degree and active membership in the Wyoming State Bar (admitted to practice in 1977) that allowed me this opportunity. I had gained a measure of understanding about curriculum development, both from my 14 years on faculty in the Department of History here and from two terms on the Arts and Sciences Central Committee (and a stint with the curriculum subcommittee). With these qualities of legal education and experience, coupled with work with undergraduate and graduate programs, I was assigned the curriculum task. Other members of our team, Prof. Tony Winer, from William Mitchell School of Law in Minnesota; Liz Goldberg, a law librarian from Indiana University; and Gulara Guliyeva, a locally-trained lawyer with specialization in environmental and human rights issues, all worked under the direction of American-trained Nancy NtiAsare, a veteran international lawyer with experience teaching law in New Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, and Estonia.

Even more important than our credentials, however, was our understanding of the historical context. I was not an expert on that region. Nonetheless, historical training naturally provides the analytical tools and comparative perspective to be able to contribute to complex systems, regardless of their geography. Of course, the skills of the team were irrelevant were it not for the presence numerous visionary individuals associated with these two universities who understood the opportunities facing their country and also the pitfalls if rule of law concepts were ignored.

Azerbaijan, in some positive ways, can be compared with Wyoming. Even though the population is much larger in Azerbaijan (more than nine million people in a country about one-third the geographical area of our state), they were part of a "crossroads" just as Wyoming has been throughout its history. The fabled silk road to China passed through Azerbaijan and visitors like Marco Polo commented on the terrain and natural resources in that region, not unlike commentaries by Oregon Trail or Union Pacific train travelers though Wyoming six centuries later. Like Wyoming, Azerbaijan experienced extraordinary oil booms—perhaps the greatest coming in Azerbaijan in the early 1870s, while Wyoming’s first oil boom years were a couple of decades later.

While the elevation at Baku along the Caspian Sea is more than 50 feet below sea level, the country does contain beautiful mountain ranges of the South Caucasus. On two different trips to the mountainous areas (known as the "regions" locally), I hiked into mountain areas as breathe-taking in their beauty as our Big Horns and as pristine as remote parts of the Wind River or Absaroka country.

Last March, Azerbaijan officials set aside some of the spectacular mountains as the country’s first national park. A local reporter, specializing in the "environmental beat," discovered that I was from Wyoming and knew we were home to the world’s first national park. Off went the "law hat" and I was historian again as I described to her the various "growing pains" Yellowstone experienced in its formative years—the problems endemic in such enterprises whether they are formed in 1872 in America or 2004 in Azerbaijan. (I expect participation in an international conference on the environment and national parks to be organized in coming months in cooperation with a German university and Western University in Baku—an outgrowth that promises exciting research possibilities for UW graduate students in several disciplines. Further, I hope to help develop exchange opportunities, particularly in the field of history and environmental studies, for Azeri students and ours).

While I could provide a few tips from Yellowstone’s history, there were also lessons for Wyomingites from the Azerbaijan experience. So far, Wyoming has been spared the spoliation of the environment that has caused the Caspian Sea to become what one Azeri official told me would be classified "world superfund site #1" –were there such a designation. Clean-up programs on the Mad Maxxian landscapes of spent oil fields (many dating from pre-Soviet days) likely will take many decades, even if the projects are funded properly.

The great oil wealth once shown off by late 19^th century oil barons in their massive mansions (now serving as museums, office buildings or cut up into apartments) in "boomtown" parts of Baku, is not as obvious now that the oil comes from offshore, from the depths of the Caspian. But neither are the long-term environmental problems so obvious either—the threats to the Beluga sturgeon (sources of the world’s best caviar) and to water supplies for a host of abutting arid nations.

And we, too, have our new resources boom in Wyoming—now mostly from coal bed methane. With our boom, too, comes a question of water—what needs to be done with the water discharged from normal coalbed methane production? How can we best utilize the wealth from this "boom" to bolster the infrastructure, improve education, and the standard of living for Wyomingites, now and in the future? In other words, how can we continue to profit from this boom, knowing it can not go on forever?

Sadly, in Azerbaijan, the tremendous wealth in the 19^th century hardly changed the lives of any but the richest families (and the Soviet take-over of the Azerbaijan Republic—the first democratic country in that region—brought even more hardship for most). Now, after almost 15 years’ freed from Soviet domination, the country continues to struggle with official corruption and plunder of public resources (with some American oil giants aiding and abetting in the theft). Meanwhile, those not holding favored positions try to eke out a livelihood. College professors struggle to make ends meet on salaries of $60 a month. Many of the elderly, without families and dependent on tiny pensions, are forced to turn to street-begging. The unemployment rate among adults hovers at an official rate of close to 20 percent (but probably a great deal higher). Projections of the national wealth, however, exude confidence that the wealth eventually will "trickle-down" to benefit the entire population.

And it is in this environment that we probably faced our greatest challenge, but also brought our greatest satisfaction—in helping the many in that society who recognized the corrosive qualities of corruption and knew that to bring better conditions to everyone, the country had to turn to rule of law. While other CEELI-sponsored projects assisted with reform of laws and reorganization of the judicial system, we believe that our project was fundamental to long-term success. In reform of legal education, we influence the learning of students who will become leading figures in law and government. By helping the universities—their administrations and faculties—adopt rigorous programs containing courses on practice, procedure, law and ethics, we can help Azeris to a better future where principles of democracy and rule of law benefits everyone—even Americans far afield. Best of all, we could bring this advice without armed force and accompanying violence, and knowing that reform comes, not from occupation, but from within a society, brought about by the many who became colleagues and friends, in reforming institutions for the betterment of all.

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