Inspiring Women Summer 2018

Italy: Legally Addicted to Words
DEIRDRE PIRRO
The American International League of Florence,
Italy
From: Melbourne, Australia
Lives: Florence, Italy
I studied both law and history at the University of
Melbourne where, after graduation, I became an
Associate Law Professor. On settling in Italy, I
thought I would be unemployable, the classic
“square peg in a round hole” as I was a lawyer
trained in the common law tradition looking for
work in a country where civil law is practiced.
However, to my surprise I soon found work with the
Italian Supreme Court preparing case law
abstracts for its data bank on environmental law
and for the Italian National Research Council
(CNR) as a legal editor and translator. Since 1988, I have also been the International Relations
Officer for an United Nations-accredited NGO called ICEF (International Court of the
Environment Foundation) in Rome. Its objective, as its name suggests, is to create a world
environmental court. Through my work with ICEF, I became a founding judge of the
International Court of Environmental Arbitration and Conciliation with chambers in Mexico City
and San Sebastian in Spain and I am the delegate, for the International Alliance of Women, at
the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.
Since school, I have always been involved in words and writing but in my professional life it was
with ''academic'' writing, using always the passive voice, particularly in legal briefs. By chance,
in 2006, I met Nita Tucker, the editor of The Florentine, the new English-language paper in
Florence who asked me
if I would be interested
in writing for it. So, I had
to learn and acquire an
active voice in my
writing and give it a
journalistic zing. And so,
twelve years later, I still
write a monthly column
for the paper on famous
Italians or expats or on
the many monuments
dotted about the city.
As well as my column in
the paper, I am working
on another book project
which is a biography.
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