Month: August 2022

Georgia Law Professor MJ Durkee moderates online ASIL discussion of book on globalization of legal education

Professor Melissa J. “MJ” Durkee, Associate Dean for International Programs, Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, and Allen Post Professor here at the University of Georgia School of Law, moderated an online book discussion sponsored by the American Society of International Law.

Discussion centered on The Globalization of Legal Education: A Critical Perspective, published last month as an open access Oxford University Press title. Featured speakers were the co-editors, Bryant Garth (pictured above, upper right) and Gregory Shaffer (lower right), along with Swethaa Ballakrishnan (lower left), all of them professors at University of California-Irvine School of Law. Md. Rizwanul Islam (upper left), a professor at North South University Bangladesh, was the discussant.

Cohosting the event were ASIL’s Teaching International Law Interest Group and also its International Legal Theory Interest Group, of which Durkee (top, center) is Vice-Chair and another Georgia Law professor, Harlan G. Cohen, is Chair.

Video of the book discussion is available here and on YouTube.

Georgia Law Professor Usha Rodrigues in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung article on special purpose acquisition companies

Usha Rodrigues, University Professor and M.E. Kilpatrick Chair of Corporate Finance & Securities Law and the University of Georgia School of Law, serving currently as the University of Georgia Interim Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, recently was featured the German daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The article by reporter Von Roland Linder was entitled “Für hunderte Spacs tickt die Uhr,” or “The clock is ticking for hundreds of spacs” – the last term an acronym for “special purpose acquisition companies,” a corporate law phenomenon about which Rodrigues has written and frequently is quoted.

Professor MJ Durkee publishes essay on legacy of 1972 Stockholm Declaration in special issue of Georgia Journal of Comparative and International Law

Professor Melissa J. “MJ” Durkee, Associate Dean for International Programs, Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, and Allen Post Professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, published “International Environmental Law at Its Semicentennial: The Stockholm Legacy” in 50 Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 748 (2022), available at the journal’s website as well as SSRN.

The publication reflects upon issues raised at, the journal’s October 2021 conference, “The 1972 Stockholm Declaration at 50: Reflecting on a Half-Century of International Environmental Law.” (Prior posts and links to panel videos here)

Here’s the SSRN abstract of Professor Durkee’s essay:

“The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment produced the Stockholm Declaration, an environmental manifesto that forcefully declared a human right to environmental health and birthed the field of modern international environmental law. The historic event powerfully “dramatized . . . the unity and fragility of the biosphere,” sparking a remarkable period of international legal innovation and cooperation on environmental protection in the decades to come.

“The Stockholm Declaration can be rightly celebrated for putting environmental issues on the international legal agenda and driving the development of environmental law at the domestic level around the world. At the same time, the Declaration’s distinctive framing of environmental problems and solutions deeply influenced these abundant subsequent laws, and here its legacy is mixed. This special issue, in celebration of the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law’s 50th anniversary volume, evaluates the legacy of the Stockholm Declaration and the legal movement it launched.”

Published in the same journal issue were: “‘In Countless Ways and On an Unprecedented Scale’: Reflections on the Stockholm Declaration at 50” by Rebecca Bratspies, Professor of Law and founding Director of the Center for Urban Environmental Reform at CUNY School of Law; and “Legal Rights for Rivers” by Katie O’Bryan, Lecturer and Member of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Faculty of Law, at Monash University in Australia.

Consul General’s talk on Mexico’s federal lawsuit against arms makers opens 2022-2023 events calendar at Georgia Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center

Our schedule of 2022-2023 events here at the University of Georgia School of Law Dean Rusk International Law Center opened yesterday with a compelling presentation by the Consul General of Mexico in Atlanta.

In a talk entitled “Institutional Structure of the U.S.-Mexico Relations and Key Bilateral Issues: Mexico’s Legal Case Against U.S. Gun Manufacturers,” Ambassador Javier Díaz de León began by outlining ways that Mexico and the United States – often along with their neighbor to the north, Canada – discuss and seek solutions to common problems.

One concern, of course, is security; in Mexico’s case, the southward flow of firearms and money that enable drug cartels to operate. After providing statistics on the high proportion of weapons confiscated in Mexico that have been manufactured or distributed in the United States, Ambassador Díaz turned to what he rightly called the “landmark” step that his government took on August 4, 2021, when it filed Estados Unidos Mexicanos v. Smith & Wesson Brands et al. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. That civil tort suit alleges that Smith & Wesson and 10 other firearms manufacturers or distributors unlawfully permitted U.S. weapons to enter Mexico, where firearms are, for the most part, prohibited. According to Ambassador Díaz, a federal judge heard argument on defendants’ motion to dismiss last spring, but has not yet ruled on that motion, and discovery is under way.

Following his presentation, Georgia Law Regents’ Professor Diane Marie Amann, one of our Center’s Faculty Co-Directors, moderated questions from the audience, composed mostly of students.

This marked the ambassador’s second visit to our University of Georgia School of Law Dean Rusk International Law Center; in 2018, also as part of our Consular Series, he spoke on “Mexico’s Relation with Georgia: Connecting Paths.”

Cosponsoring yesterday’s event with our Center were the Latin American & Caribbean Studies Institute at the University of Georgia, as well as two Georgia Law student groups, the Hispanic Law Students Association and the International Law Society.

Follow this webpage or our Twitter feed to learn about upcoming events.