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Vartkes Yeghiayan ((アルメニア語:Վարդգէս Եղիայեան); born April 6, 1936) is an Armenian-American attorney specializing in international law. Yeghiayan〔()(Yeghiayan Law Firm )〕 is known for launching several lawsuits against insurance companies for insurance policies issued to Armenians in the early twentieth century during the time of the Armenian Genocide. ==Biography and career== Yeghiayan was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to a wealthy Armenian family originally from the Ottoman Empire. His father Boghos, a native of Isparta, was an orphaned survivor of the World War I-era massacres and deportations of the Armenian Genocide. In Ethiopia, Boghos had worked his way up at an international trading firm. Yeghiayan's mother, Aroussiag Terzian, had close relations with the Ethiopian royal family – her godmother was Menen Asfaw, the wife of Emperor Haile Selassie – and this relationship had afforded him and his two brothers the privilege to study abroad.〔 At age eleven, he was sent to an American boarding school in Cyprus and in 1954 he arrived to study in the United States.〔"(Brief Biography of Vartkes Yeghiayan )." Armenian Educational Fund. Accessed December 17, 2010.〕 He attended school at Indiana University for one year before being accepted to Berkeley, initially as a premed student, later changing his major and graduating with a Bachelor in history in 1959. Yeghiayan was accepted to the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and completed his legal studies at Lincoln Law School, receiving his Juris Doctor (J.D.) in 1965. After briefly working for a small firm in Oakland, he joined California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA).〔 Over time, Yeghiayan rose from junior attorney to become the Northern California Regional Director of the CRLA. Due to his experience, in 1974 President Richard Nixon appointed him as the Special Assistant for International Operations to Director of ACTION.〔 He was later appointed assistant director to the Peace Corps and remained in this position until 1980. Yeghiayan was made responsible for the establishment and management in formulating policy, agency planning, conducting liaison with foreign and domestic governmental and private organizations and individuals, and encouragement of voluntary service programs within the United States and abroad. As Assistant Director, he supervised the worldwide operations of the Peace Corps’ 7,000 volunteers in over 60 countries. He was re-appointed by successive administrations and served under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter. Yeghiayan also served as Secretary for the United States Presidential Commission on Volunteerism.〔 In 1975, Yeghiayan testified before the United States Congress Helsinki Commission and in 1979, he was commissioned by the American Enterprise Institute of Public Policy, to write a position paper on the Horn of Africa, leading Yeghiayan to serve as consultant on the topic of starvation in Africa. Following his career in Washington D.C., Yeghiayan opened his own legal practice in California. In 1991, during the collapse of the Soviet Union, he visited the newly formed Republic of Armenia and served as a legal advisor there and authored the first draft of the Armenian Constitution. During the same year, Yeghiayan pioneered efforts to bring food assistance to the newly formed republic through USAID, and he led a team of engineers from the Ministry of Engineering in California to conduct a feasibility study of the oil industry in Armenia.〔 Yeghiayan currently practices law in Glendale, California, where he specializes in international law and complex litigation. He is fluent in English, Armenian, French, Italian, and Ethiopian. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Vartkes Yeghiayan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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