Month: April 2022

MJ Durkee, Georgia Law Associate Dean and our Center’s Director, presents forthcoming article at William & Mary Law School International Law Workshop

Melissa J. “MJ” Durkee, who is Associate Dean for International Programs, Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, and Allen Post Professor here at Georgia Law, took part as both a presenter and a commentator at the daylong International Law Workshop sponsored online Saturday by William & Mary Law School.

Durkee presented “The Pledging World Order,” an article forthcoming in the Yale Journal of International Law.

She also commented on a paper entitled “The Powers of Judgment: Hannah Arendt’s Moral and Legal Thought,” by David Luban, University Professor and Professor of Law and Philosophy at Georgetown Law.

Commenting on Durkee’s paper was William & Mary Law Professor Evan Criddle. Along with another William & Mary Law Professor, Nancy Combs, Criddle hosted the workshop, which featured scholars from several law faculties in the United States and in The Netherlands.

Oxford University Press publishes book on corporate governance, sustainability by Georgia Law Prof Christopher Bruner

A new book entitled The Corporation as Technology: Re-Calibrating Corporate Governance for a Sustainable Future and written by Christopher M. Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, has been released today by Oxford University Press.

Here’s OUP’s description:

“Recent decades have witnessed environmental, social, and economic upheaval, with major corporations contributing to a host of interconnected crises. The Corporation as Technology examines the dynamics of the corporate form and corporate law that incentivize harmful excesses and presents an alternative vision to render corporate activities more sustainable.

“The corporate form is commonly described as a set of fixed characteristics that strongly prioritize shareholders’ interests. This book subverts this widely held belief, suggesting that such rigid depictions reinforce harmful corporate pathologies, including excessive risk-taking and lack of regard for environmental and social impacts. Instead, corporations are presented as a dynamic legal technology that policymakers can re-calibrate over time in response to changing landscapes.

“This book explores the theoretical and practical ramifications of this alternative vision, focusing on how the corporate form can help secure an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable future.”

Drawing upon corporate governance structures and reform efforts from around the world, Professor Bruner studies these issues in three parts, entitled, respectively, “The Dynamism of the Corporation,” “Re-Conceptualizing the Corporation,” and “Harnessing the Corporation.” Further details here.

Georgia Law students named top oralists, and team finishes in world’s top 16, at Jessup International Law Moot Court

Our exceptionally talented team of University of Georgia School of Law students – 2Ls Millie Price, Courtney Robinson, Caleb Grant, James Stewart, and Alex Krupp – competed last week through to the Octofinals of one of the world’s most prestigious law tournaments, the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.

2022 Georgia Law Jessup team: clockwise from upper left, Caleb Grant, James Stewart, Alex Krupp, Millie Price, Courtney Robinson

Making their achievement even sweeter, team member Robinson tied as the best overall oralist through the Advanced Rounds, while teammate Stewart was named fifth best. They and they teammates prepared written memorials and gave oral arguments as if they were appearing before the International Court of Justice, the judicial arm of the United Nations which adjudicates international law disputes.

In reaching the Octofinals, the Georgia Law team bested many other competitors, in a tournament that attracted nearly 3,500 students from about 700 law schools in 100 countries and jurisdictions. They lost in that International Round to a team from Canada’s University of Western Ontario. Winning the entire tournament was Harvard, against whom Georgia had competed last month in Jessup’s U.S. championship round.

Leading the team were 3L coach Courtney Hogan and faculty advisor/coach Anna White Howard, both themselves former Jessup advocates.

The team benefited from moots and other assistance by many members of the Georgia Law community, including: Professor Melissa J. “MJ” Durkee, Associate Dean for International Programs and Director of the law school’s Dean Rusk International Law Center, and Professors Diane Marie Amann and Harlan Grant Cohen, the Center’s Faculty Co-Directors; Georgia Law Dean Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge; Kellie Casey, Director of Advocacy; Anne Burnett, Foreign and International Law Librarian; Professors Nathan S. Chapman, Rob McNiff, and Lori A. Ringhand; and alums, Judge Ben Cheesbro, Ellen Clarke, Erik Chambers Myra Creighton, Amy Helmick, and Roger Grantham..

The Washington, D.C.-based International Law Students Association is Jessup’s primary host, with the law firm of White & Case sponsoring the International Rounds as well as some national competitions.

In D.C. during ASIL Annual Meeting this week, Georgia Law scholars on panels at ASIL and at Brookings Institution

Scholars at the University of Georgia School of Law are taking part on panels during this week’s 116th Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law, the theme of which is “Privatizing International Governance.”

The annual meeting opened yesterday and runs through Saturday – in person, in Washington, D.C., for the first time in a couple years. Indeed, the meeting is hybrid, with registration available for online viewers – including, at ASIL Academic Partners like Georgia Law, free registration for students.

Georgia Law representation includes these panels:

10:30-11:30 a.m., Friday, April 8: Privatizing International Governance

Melissa J. “MJ” Durkee, who is Associate Dean for International Programs, Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, and Allen Post Professor (pictured above left), will serve as moderator for a panel entitled “Privatizing International Governance,” part of the meeting’s International Law Beyond the State track.

Here’s the panel description:

“The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights both encourage engaging business groups as partners in developing global governance agendas. Such multi-stakeholder and public-private partnerships are increasingly common and seen as essential to the future of international business regulation. The participation of affected groups brings expertise, promotes engagement and buy-in, and secures funding. At the same time, critics have raised alarms about industry capture of the UN climate change bodies, global financial governance institutions, and international public health standard-setting efforts. In response, institutions like the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization are implementing reforms to prevent mission-distortion by business groups. At a time when multilateral cooperation is at an ebb, public-private partnerships are indispensable, and yet the danger of undue influence is real. The time is therefore ripe to consider how to productively engage business groups in global governance. This roundtable of experts will discuss cutting-edge efforts by international organizations to capture the benefits of business participation while reducing the harms. The roundtable will consider access rules, existing and proposed reforms, and how past experience may offer lessons for future challenges.”

Panelists will be: Patricia Kameri-Mbote, United Nations Environment Programme; Nora Mardirossian, Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment; Suzy Nikièma, Lead, Sustainable Investment, International Institute for Sustainable Development; and Nancy Thevenin, United States Council for International Business.

3-4:30 p.m., Friday, April 8: Fourth Annual International Law Review Editors-in-Chief Roundtable

Harlan G. Cohen, who is Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center at Georgia Law (above right), will serve as a panelist in the “Fourth Annual International Law Review Editors-in-Chief Roundtable,” an online session that is part of the meeting’s Professional and Academic Development track.

Here’s the panel description:

“In recognition of the important role that student-edited international law journals play in the dissemination of international legal scholarship, the Society hosts an annual International Law Review Editor Roundtable. This Roundtable will discuss key issues around legal scholarship, including: selecting great topics that might be more relevant to the various audiences of law journals, including scholars and practitioners; how international law journals can be more effective at soliciting and/or selecting relevant pieces of international legal scholarship; and how to work with authors (who may have different cultural perspectives) to successfully publish their pieces. The Roundtable will be facilitated by international law experts as well as sitting editors-in-chief of law student-run international law journals. The Society invites current students and recent graduates interested in the process of scholarship and publication in international law to connect with their peers and distinguished scholars and practitioners.”

Joining Professor Cohen on the panel will be Colorado Law Professor James Anaya and Vanderbilt Law Professor Ingrid Wuerth.

Additionally:

11 a.m.-1 p.m. Friday, April 8: Eighth Annual Justice Stephen Breyer Lecture on International Law, Brookings Institution

Diane Marie Amann, who is Regents’ Professor of International Law, Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and Faculty Co-Director of our Center (above second from left), will serve on a panel to be held after Philippe Sands, a barrister and University College London law professor now visiting at Harvard Law, delivers a lecture entitled “Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide, and Ecocide: of Rights, Responsibilities, and International Order.” Other panelists will be Georgetown Law Professor Jane Stromseth and George Washington University Law Professor Sean D. Murphy. Online registration is still available here for this event.

Georgia Law professors also are taking part in ASIL leadership meetings during the annual conference, which is supported by four volunteer Georgia Law students: 1Ls John Carter and Jack Schlafly and LLMs Veronika Grubenko and Agustina Figueroa Imfeld.