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LLM alumna meets prospective students in Argentina

Last week our alumna Martina Lourdes Rojo (LLM ’04), a law professor in the faculty of judicial sciences at the Universidad del Salvador in Argentina, met with prospective LLM students in Buenos Aires.

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Part of a university fair sponsored by Education USA, an arm of the U.S. Department of State, the day offered an opportunity discuss the career benefits and special advantages of earning the Master of Law, or LL.M., degree at Georgia Law.

Students who missed it should feel free to email LLM@uga.edu to hear more about the flexible degree program. We are currently accepting applications and look forward to hearing from you!

 

Australian Broadcasting Co. features Georgia Law Professor Dennis and new coauthored book, “Rap Lyrics on Trial”

A just-published article at ABC News, a digital publication of the Australian Broadcasting Co., features Georgia Law Professor Andrea L. Dennis (right), who holds the law school’s John Byrd Martin Chair of Law.

The article poses this headline question:  “Can violent rap lyrics be evidence of criminality or does the law misunderstand music’s biggest genre?” In seeking an answer, ABC music & pop culture reporter Paul Donoughue focuses on the new book Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics, and Guilt in America (The New Press 2019), which Dennis, a criminal law expert, has coauthored with University of Richmond Liberal Arts Professor Erik Nielson.

The ABC article notes that the coauthors identified more than “500 cases in the US alone of rap lyrics being used in criminal trials, at times leading to inappropriate or wrongful convictions,” and continues:

“Few would say Johnny Cash’s famous lyric ‘I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die’ was evidence of the country singer’s murderous leanings, they write.

“‘It is quite clear to us that this [rap] is the only fictional art form that is used in this way,’ Professor Dennis said, adding that race was an essential factor in the story.

“There are very limited examples of it being appropriate, Professor Dennis said. For example, when a lyric accurately describes a specific crime.

“‘Usually, what’s happening is the lyrics are somewhat generic — talking about general crime or very common types of behaviour that almost any rap artist might talk about,’ she said.”

Donoghue further compares the U.S. situation to that in Australia, where speech protections are less strong but where no similar prosecution has yet taken place.

The full Australian article is available here; Dennis’ book, here.

Student Caroline Harvey wins cultural heritage writing competition

Caroline HarveyCaroline Harvey, a current third-year student at the University of Georgia School of Law, is one of two 2019 winners of the Lawyer’s Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation Law Student Writing Competition in Cultural Heritage Law.

Harvey’s paper, “An Avenue for Fairness: Disclosure-Based Compensation Schemes for Good Faith Purchasers of Stolen Art,” argues that in art replevin actions, courts should take an additional step in their due diligence analyses and consider whether a good faith possessor of stolen artwork should be entitled to compensation after forfeiting artwork to the true owner. This, she argues, would “more fairly balance the equities between the parties and avoid total loss to the good faith purchaser.”

Harvey currently serves as the Executive Notes Editor for the Georgia Law Review. After her first year, she participated in the Global Governance Summer School, and she completed a Global Externship At-Home at the Antiquities Coalition in Washington, D.C.  Last summer, she worked for Norris Legal Atlanta Law Group. She holds a B.A. in Art History from the University of Georgia, and hopes to practice in the areas of cultural heritage and art law.

Georgia Law Professor Ringhand presents comparative elections law paper on US, UK at Mercer conference

Lori A. Ringhand, J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, presented her comparative elections law scholarship last Friday at the “Contemporary Issues in Election Law” Law Review Symposium at Mercer University School of Law in Macon.

Ringhand, an expert in election law, constitutional law, and comparative law, presented a paper entitled “First Amendment (Un)Exceptionalism: US and UK Responses to Online Electioneering.” It’s a product of her Spring 2019 research as a Fulbright Distinguished Chair at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland (prior posts here and here).

Ringhand is presenting the same paper this semester at other law schools, including George Washington University and Marquette University.

The Mercer symposium also featured a paper by a United Kingdom-based scholar who’d spoken at Georgia Law last Wednesday: Professor Jacob Eisler, University of Southampton Law School.

Georgia Law Professor Bruner presents on comparative corporate governance methods at Fordham Law workshop

Christopher Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, took part this past weekend in a 2-day Comparative Corporate Governance Workshop at Fordham Law School in New York.

The  workshop centered around a new volume in progress, Research Handbook on Comparative Corporate Governance (Edward Elgar, forthcoming).

Bruner presented his own draft chapter, “Methods of Comparative Corporate Governance,” and also commented on draft chapters by two other contributors.

Georgia Law Dean Bo Rutledge, student Katherine Larsen publish commentary on promise of new international mediation treaty

A new treaty seems poised to raise the profile of mediation as a way of resolving disputes, according to commentary by the dean and a student researcher here at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Coauthoring the Daily Report article, entitled “Singapore Convention Presents an Opportunity for Georgia in Mediation,” were international dispute resolution expert Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge, Dean and Herman E. Talmadge Chair of Law at Georgia  Law, and 3L Katherine Larsen.

The United States belongs to a number of treaties – most notably, the UN Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, concluded in New York in 1958 and so known as the New York Convention – that make make arbitration awards enforceable. This membership, the article observed, “has given arbitration a comparative advantage over other forms of dispute resolution.”

But that could change once the 2018 UN Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation – named the Singapore Convention in recognition of the city where it was concluded last December –  enters into force. Some predict that could happen within a year, the authors wrote, then focused on the significance of this for the state of Georgia:

“Much like it adopted an international arbitration code, the state should consider enacting an international mediation law tied to the provisions of the Singapore Convention. Such legislation could enhance Georgia’s appeal as a mediation forum and build upon its reputation as a jurisdiction hospitable to business, including the resolution of business disputes.”

The full commentary is available here. A Global Atlanta news report on a related talk that Dean Rutledge delivered at the annual conference of the Atlanta International Arbitration Society is here.

Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann presents at ESIL and ICC on Dr. Aline Chalufour, lawyer on French prosecution team at Nuremberg

Earlier this month, in Europe, Professor Diane Marie Amann, the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center here at the University of Georgia School of Law, presented her research respecting the only French woman lawyer on Nuremberg.

Amann gave a paper entitled “Intersectional Sovereignties: Dr. Aline Chalufour, Woman at Nuremberg – and at Paris, Ottawa, and Dalat” at “New Histories of Sovereigns and Sovereignties,” a daylong workshop sponsored by the European Society of International Law Interest Group on the History of International Law. The workshop also featured scholars from Stanford University, the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and Oxford University in England. It took place at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, the day before the start of ESIL’s annual conference held at the same university.

The following week, Amann presented on Dr. Chalufour (pictured above at far right) as a guest lecturer in the series presented by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at The Hague in the Netherlands.

The first talk explored the life of Dr. Chalufour, who was born in 1899 in Dieppe and lived at least until the early 1980s, through 3 theorizations of sovereignty: 1st, shared sovereignties theories developed alongside the 1920 establishment of the League of Nations; 2d, theories on the interrelation of international law with colonialism and imperialism; and 3d, feminist theorizations of human sovereignties. Amann’s second talk explored Dr. Chalufour’s work at Nuremberg as an example of a cross-cutting history from below.

This work in progress is part of Amann’s ongoing research into the roles that women played at post-World War II trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo.

Georgia Law Professor Melissa J. Durkee presents in Greece on customary international law, states, corporations and global commons

Professor Melissa J. Durkee, the J. Alton Hosch Associate Professor of Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, presented her international law scholarship in Greece earlier this month.

Durkee spoke on “‘Attributed’ Customary International Law: States, Corporations and the Global Commons” at a panel entitled “Corporations, International Law and Human Rights For Sustainable Development.” The panel formed part of a meeting on “States, Corporations and Commons: Dissonance and Accord,” which took place the day before the start of the annual conference of the European Society of International Law, held this year in Athens, Greece.

Organizing the pre-conference meeting was the International Environmental Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law. It took place at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in northeastern Greece, and featured, in addition to Durkee, scholars from Germany, Greece, Italy, Russia, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom.

Seeking Associate Director for Global Practice Preparation: Georgia Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center

IMG_7003We’re looking for a self-initiating, globally minded individual to lead the Global Practice Preparation portfolio here at the Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law.

The Associate Director for Global Practice Preparation will advance our 40-year-old Center’s mission by developing and administering global practice preparation initiatives, with the support of an administrative assistant and under the supervision of the Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center.

As detailed in the full job notice, initiatives include:

A J.D. is preferred for this position. As detailed in the full job notice, the successful applicant also will have demonstrated experience, practice- or research-based, in global legal education and international law. The successful applicant further will have an ability to travel, as well as a demonstrated self-initiating, entrepreneurial, creative, and collaborative approach to work.

We look forward to filling this vital position as soon as possible, so if you’re interested, don’t delay!

Introducing our LL.M. Class of 2020

LLMs 2019-20_forweb

From left, top row:  Arif Iqbal; Esra Aydinoz; Emmanuel Kyei; Gordon Oduor; Kingsley Opia-Enwemuche; Jessica Atatigho; Romario Lee; Cindy Hawkins Rada. Bottom row: Florence Nalukwago; Tahmineh Madani; Rayan Yassin; Hiance Castro; Jie Zhang; Mahbub Islam; Shiyang Liu; Maisha Tahsin. Not pictured: Ashish Joshi, Amir Tanhaei

We are proud to introduce the University of Georgia School of Law Master of Laws (LL.M.) Class of 2020.

The group of 18 includes lawyers from 14 different countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, including: Bangladesh, China, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Turkey, and Uganda.

They join a tradition that began at the University of Georgia School of Law in the early 1970s, when a Belgian lawyer became the first foreign-trained practitioner to earn a Georgia Law LL.M. degree. In the ensuing four decades, the law school and its Dean Rusk International Law Center have produced over 500 LL.M. graduates, with ties to 75 countries and every continent in the world.

Side by side with J.D. candidates, LL.M.s follow a flexible curriculum tailored to their own career goals – goals that may include preparation to sit for a U.S. bar examination, or pursuit of a concentration affording advancement in their home country’s legal profession or academic institutions.

The application for the LL.M. class of 2021 is now open; for information or to apply for LL.M. studies, see here.