Author: Dean Rusk International Law Center

“Arms Sales in Conflict: Examining the Impact on Yemen,” session April 4 during ASIL Annual Meeting in D.C.

Arms sales and the conflict in Yemen will be the focus of a panel at the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. from 2:30-4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 4, 2018.

The panel will examine why some states halt arms sales to countries in conflict, while others do not. Using Saudi Arabia’s support for the Yemeni government as a case study, this session will focus on why the United States has continued (and, in fact, increased) arms sales to Saudi Arabia while some European governments have halted such sales pending further review. The panel will examine the changes to US policy and regulations under the Trump administration, focusing on the use and development of international standards related to arms sales, in particular whether the Arms Trade Treaty has been an effective tool in stopping irresponsible arms sales.

 

 

Panelists will include: Brittany Benowitz, Chief Counsel at the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights (left); Dafna H. Rand, former Deputy Assistant Secretary, Department of State Bureau of  Democracy, Human Rights & Labor (center left); and Rachel Stohl, Managing Director of the Stimson Center, and Director of the Conventional Defense Program (center right). Moderating the panel will be our Center’s Director, Kathleen A. Doty (right).

The panel is presented jointly by two ASIL interest groups, the Nonproliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament Interest Group and the Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict. The session is also co-sponsored by the Dean Rusk International Law Center, CIVIC, and the Stimson Center.

ASIL attendees and others in Washington are most welcome to join us and take part in the April 4 conversation, to be held in the Lexington Room of the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, 400 New Jersey Avenue, NW. Please join us if you will be in Washington; light refreshments will be served.

 

 

Pride of place: Georgia Law’s international law curriculum and initiatives rank No. 15 in US News

Delighted to share the news that the just-released 2019 US News rankings place our international law curriculum here at the University of Georgia School of Law at No. 15 in the United States.

We’re situated just below UCLA and Stanford, just above Northwestern and the University of Texas, and 3 slots higher than last year. By our count, this marks the 4th time in recent years we’ve been among the top 20 or so US law schools for international law.

The achievement is due in no small part to the enthusiastic support and hard work of everyone affiliated with Georgia Law’s 40-year-old Dean Rusk International Law Center. To name a few:

► Stellar members of the law faculty, including: Dean Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge, an international arbitration expert; Associate Dean Lori A. Ringhand, a scholar of comparative constitutional law; our Center’s Faculty Co-Directors, Professors Diane Marie Amann, currently at the University of Oxford, as a Research Visitor at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and Visiting Fellow at Mansfield College, and Professor Harlan G. Cohen, an expert in global governance and foreign relations law; Professors Christopher M. Bruner, a comparative corporate governance scholar, Jason A. Cade, an immigration expert, Sonja West and Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, who have presented on media law and civil procedure, respectively, in Budapest and Tel Aviv, Walter Hellerstein, a world-renowned tax specialist, Nathan S. Chapman, a scholar of due process and extraterritoriality, and Michael L. Wells, a European Union scholar; and our Center’s Director, Kathleen A. Doty, an arms control specialist;

► Talented students pursuing JD, MSL, and LLM degrees, including: the dozen or so who work with us as Dean Rusk International Law Center Student Ambassadors; the staffers and editors of the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law who produce one of the country’s oldest student journals, and who led our Fall 2017 conference on international trade; the advocates on our Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot and Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court teams; participants in our Global Externships and our Global Governance Summer School; the leaders of our International Law Society and, this year, of the worldwide International Law Students Association; and the students who take part each week in our Legal Spanish Study Group;

► Superb Center staff like Laura Tate Kagel, Christine Keller, Britney Hardweare, and Mandy Dixon;

► Visiting scholars like Professor Yanying Zhang of Shandong University, China, and Dr. Piotr Uhma of Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Kraków University, Poland;

► Academics, practitioners, and policymakers, from all over the world, who have contributed to our events – conferences and lectures, as well as our International Law Colloquium Series;

► Graduates who excel as partners in international commercial law firms, as directors of public law entities like the United Nations World Food Programme, as in-house counsel at leading multinational enterprises, and as diplomats and public servants – and who give back through mentoring and other support;

► Our valued partnerships, with Georgia Law student organizations; with institutions like the Leuven Centre for Global Governance at Belgium’s University of Leuven; with organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross, the American Society of International Law, the American Branch of the International Law Association, IntLawGrrls blog, Global Atlanta, the World Affairs Council of Atlanta, the Atlanta International Arbitration Society, and the Planethood Foundation; with professional groups including the Georgia Asian and Pacific American Bar Association and the Vietnamese American Bar Association; with university units like the School of Public & International Affairs, the Department of Comparative Literature, the African Studies Institute, the Institute for Native American Studies, the Latin American & Caribbean Studies Institute, and the Willson Center for Humanities & Arts.

With thanks to all, we look forward to continue strengthening our initiatives in international, comparative, transnational, and foreign relations law – not least, in the preparation of Georgia Law students to practice in our 21st C. globalized legal profession.

Benjamin Zawacki, author of Thailand: Shifting Ground between the US and a Rising China, to speak at Georgia Law on Tuesday, March 20

Benjamin Zawacki bookWe at the University of Georgia School of Law Dean Rusk International Law Center are delighted to welcome Benjamin Zawacki, a Bangkok-based human rights researcher and advocate, to campus to discuss his recently-released book, Thailand: Shifting Ground between the US and a Rising China. He will be speaking tomorrow, March 20, 2018, from 11:45-1:00 p.m. in the Larry Walker Room in Dean Rusk Hall.

Joining him in conversation will be UGA Department of History history_faculty_08Professor Ari Levine, an expert in China. Zawacki will discuss Thailand’s recent pivot towards China following decades as a key strategic ally of the United States, as well as what that means for a new administration in Washington. Levine will pose key questions and moderate a discussion with attendees.

Benji headshot

Zawacki has lived in Thailand for the past 15 years. In 2015, he was a visiting fellow in the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School and a term member on the Council of Foreign Relations. He previously served as the Senior Legal Advisor for Southeast Asia with the International Commission of Jurists, the Acting Regional Representative of the International Development Law Organization, and Amnesty International’s Myanmar, Thailand, and Asian Emergencies Researcher.

The event is co-sponsored by the law school’s Dean Rusk International Law Center, the Department of History, and the International Law Society. It is presented as part of the Center’s United Nations Academic Impact partnership.

International arbitrator Wallgren-Lindholm to speak at Georgia Law

We at the University of Georgia School of Law Dean Rusk International Law Center look forward to welcoming renowned international arbitrator Carita Wallgren-Lindholm to campus this Thursday, March 8. She will speak on “Due Process and Ethics in International Arbitration: What Rules and How to Apply Them” from 11:50 a.m.-12:50 p.m. in Room A-120, Hirsch Hall.

Wallgren-Lindholm is Chair of the Commission on Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution of the International Chamber of Commerce, and has served as a member of that commission since 1996. She has also been a member since 2012 of the International Chamber of Commerce International Court of Arbitration. She is a founding partner of Lindholm Wallgren, a law firm based in Helsinki, Finland.

Cosponsoring her talk is the International Law Society, Georgia Law’s chapter of the International Law Students Association.

Details here.

Webinar to learn about Georgia Law LL.M. degree Wednesday, March 7

LLMbrochureCLR2017Did you miss our recent information session in Atlanta about the Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree at the University of Georgia School of Law? In case you did, there’s another opportunity to find out more!

Foreign-educated attorneys are invited to join Laura Tate Kagel, Associate Director for International Professional Education, for a free webinar on the LL.M. degree on Wednesday, March 7, 2018, from 12:00-12:50 p.m. (Eastern time – U.S. and Canada).

Topics to be discussed during the presentation include:

  • benefits of obtaining an LL.M.
  • putting together a strong application
  • costs and financial aid
  • career options for LL.M. graduates
  • steps toward preparing to take a U.S. bar examination

The LL.M. is a one-year, full-time degree designed for lawyers who trained in countries outside the United States and wish to study at the University of Georgia School of Law, a 159-year-old institution that is consistently ranked among the country’s top law schools. Explore the Georgia Law LL.M. degree here.

Join the webinar from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android at https://zoom.us/j/129159834, and use meeting ID 129 159 834.

 

 

Best of luck to Georgia Law’s 2018 Jessup International Law Moot team

The 2018 Georgia Law Jessup team, from left: Roger Grantham, Lyddy O’Brien, Allie Gowens, Jennifer Cotton, and Ben Torres

Members of our University of Georgia School of Law team are competing this week in New Orleans regional rounds of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. They’re part of a 59-year-old tradition, in which law students enact the presentation of arguments before the International Court of Justice, the Hague-based judicial organ of the United Nations.

In New Orleans and in cities across the globe, teams from more than 645 law schools, representing 95 countries, are arguing this year’s Jessup dispute, Case Concerning the Egart and the Ibra (People’s Democratic Republic of Anduchenca v. Federal Republic of Rukaruku).

We at Georgia Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center have enjoyed working with this talented team of students throughout this academic year, and we wish them the best of luck in this year’s contest.

Learn about Georgia Law LL.M. degree at Atlanta info session Tuesday, Feb. 13

Photo for Global Flash

Persons who’ve completed law studies overseas are invited to learn about earning a University of Georgia School of Law Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree at a free information session this month at Georgia Law’s Atlanta campus, located in the Buckhead area.

The session will be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, February 13, 2018, in Room 119 of the Terry Executive Education Center, Live Oak Square, 3475 Lenox Road, N.E. (click here for directions).

The LL.M. is a one-year, full-time degree designed for lawyers who trained in countries outside the United States and wish to study at the University of Georgia School of Law, a 159-year-old institution that is consistently ranked among the country’s top law schools.

Georgia Law LL.M. candidates study alongside J.D. candidates. Each LL.M. student pursues a flexible curriculum tailored to his or her career goals, including preparation to be eligible to sit for the Georgia or other U.S. bar examination. Details about this decades-old initiative may be found at our website and in posts at this blog of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, the law school unit that administers the LL.M. degree.

Among those speaking at the information session will be our LL.M. alumnus Javier A. Gonzalez, who will talk about the student experience at the University of Georgia School of Law. Other topics to be discussed at the information session include:

  • benefits of obtaining an LL.M.
  • putting together a strong application
  • costs and financial aid
  • career options for LL.M. graduates
  • steps toward preparing to take a U.S. bar examination

Interested persons are invited to register at no cost. Light refreshments will be served.

We look forward to seeing you and answering your questions there!

Professor Cohen’s AJIL essay on “Multilateralism’s Life-Cycle” at SSRN

Harlan Grant Cohen, the Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of our Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law, has posted a chapter entitled “Multilateralism’s Life-Cycle,” which will appear in a forthcoming issue of volume 112 of the American Journal of International Law.

The manuscript, which forms part of our Dean Rusk International Law Center Research Paper Series at SSRN, may be downloaded at this SSRN link.

Here’s the abstract for this essay by Professor Cohen, an expert in global governance and member of the AJIL Board of Editors:

Does multilateralism have a life-cycle? Perhaps paradoxically, this essay suggests that current pressures on multilateralism and multilateral institutions, including threatened withdrawals by the United Kingdom from the European Union, the United States from the Paris climate change agreement, South Africa, Burundi, and Gambia from the International Criminal Court, and others, may be natural symptoms of those institutions’ relative success. Successful multilateralism and multilateral institutions, this essay argues, has four intertwined effects, which together, make continued multilateralism more difficult: (1) the wider dispersion of wealth or power among members, (2) the decreasing value for members of issue linkages, (3) changing assessment of multilateral institutions’ value in the face of increased effectiveness, and (4) members’ increased focus on relative or positional gains over absolute ones. Exploring how each of these manifests in the world today, this essay suggests that current stresses on multilateralism may best be understood as the natural growing pains of an increasingly mature set of institutions. The open question going forward is what form the next stage of development will take. Will strategies of multilateralism continue or will they be replaced by smaller clubs and more local approaches?

Professor Bruner presents on corporate law and corporate governance at international conference in England

“Contextual Corporate Governance: Tailoring Board Independence Rules by Industry” is the title of the presentation that our Christopher Bruner, J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law, delivered Monday at the annual International Corporate Governance and Law Forum, held this year in England.

Hosted by the Centre for Business Law and Practice at the University of Leeds School of Law and cosponsored by Deakin Law School of Australia and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the 2-day event brought together law and business scholars from around the world to discuss corporate board composition and process.

Bruner, a member of our Dean Rusk International Law Center Council, was among the 20 or so scholars who presented, from Australia, China, England, France, Japan, Norway, and the United States. Here’s the description of his paper:

Over recent decades, several commercially prominent jurisdictions have increasingly required that listed company boards, and certain committees, consist primarily of ‘independent’ (i.e. non-executive) directors. In the United States, for example, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Dodd-Frank Act respectively require that a listed company’s audit and compensation committees be entirely independent. NYSE and NASDAQ rules go further, requiring that a majority of the whole board be independent. Such requirements reflect the prevailing view that independent directors protect minority shareholder interests through greater objectivity and practical capacity to monitor and resist domineering CEOs. That such benefits outweigh the costs – notably, limited information (relative to executive directors) – is assumed.

Recent empirical work, however, increasingly casts doubt on this assumption – at least in certain contexts. While empirical studies initially found little evidence that director independence rules impact corporate performance at all, more recent studies focusing on the cost of acquiring company-specific information suggest that the impacts of such rules are far from uniform. Indeed, mounting evidence suggests that such rules may improve performance where company-specific information can be acquired at low cost, yet harm performance where the cost of information acquisition is high. These findings – commending sensitivity to industry context – dovetail with a parallel body of post-crisis studies associating board independence (and other shareholder-centric governance structures) with potentially undesirable risk-taking incentives in certain industries – notably, finance.

These perspectives offer much-needed nuance to our thinking about corporate governance reform, strongly suggesting that one-size-fits-all rules mandating uniform board structures across the universe of listed companies may widely miss the mark in important contexts. This paper will discuss the history of such reforms, canvass relevant legal and financial literatures, and explore regulatory strategies for more targeted reforms on an industry-by-industry basis.

International lawyer Christine Keller, our Center’s new Associate Director for Global Practice Preparation

KellerWe’ve just welcomed a new international lawyer to the Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law: Christine Keller, our new Associate Director for Global Practice Preparation.

In that position, she’ll enhance our 40-year-old Center’s mission by developing and administering global practice preparation initiatives,  including: the Global Governance Summer School we host in the Netherlands and Belgium, in partnership with the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, University of Leuven; our Global Externships Overseas and At-Home; academic-year events programming and support; communications; and research initiatives.

It’s a bit of a homecoming for Christine, who was an undergraduate at the University of Georgia – she earned her A.B. in Political Science with honors, and was a member of the university’s NCAA champion women’s swim team. She also holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School (with a focus on international criminal law), a J.D. from the Santa Clara University School of Law (where she was a member of the Jessup International Moot Court team and a Justice John Paul Stevens Public Interest Fellow), and an M.A. in International Policy Studies from Stanford University.

She comes to us from The Hague in the Netherlands, where for the last decade she has practiced international criminal law. At the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, her positions included: Associate Legal Officer and then a Legal Officer in Chambers, working on the Tolimir and Karadžić cases and leading a team of attorneys on an aspect of the Prlić appeal. Before that, she worked as an Assistant Legal Officer to two successive judges of Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court. She also provided research and drafting assistance in the Office of the Prosecutor, on cases including Al Bashir and issues including victim participation. She also has worked at a San Francisco nongovernmental organization, the Center for Justice and Accountability, on topics such as European universal jurisdiction, human rights violations in Guatemala and Somalia, and the Alien Tort Statute.

Christine has studied abroad in Germany and El Salvador, is proficient in French, and has a working knowledge of Spanish.

We’re delighted to welcome her!