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Celebrating grads & another great year

Urvashi Jain, Chanel Chauvet, and Alessandra Cunha enjoy refreshments while Winston, our cookie-jar-bulldog mascot, looks on

Just before University of Georgia School of Law students entered the Spring 2017 exam period, we at the law school’s Dean Rusk International Law Center took a moment to thank and congratulate the many students with whom we work.

As listed below, nearly 50 of them will earn JD or LLM  degrees later this month. We were delighted to celebrate their achievements.

The reception also recognized our Center Fellow and our many Student Ambassadors. Members of the 1L, 2L, 3L, and LLM classes, they assist with administrative duties, events, and research. Indeed, they act as true ambassadors by spreading the word about Center’s activities throughout the year.

Graduating Student Ambassador Alessandro Raimondo receives Center mug from Associate Dean Diane Marie Amann

Also recognized were the many students who have taken part in initiatives like the Global Externship, summer study abroad, the Legal Spanish Study Group, Southeast Model African Union, Louis B. Sohn Professional Development fellowships, Atlanta International Arbitration Society reporting, the March 2017 IntLawGrrls conference, the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, and the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot.

Thanks and congratulations to all!

Class of 2017

Caitlin Amick Jessup moot
Philicia Armbrister LLM
Tomiisin Atewologun LLM
Reed Bennett Brussels-Geneva study abroad
Chad Berger Brussels-Geneva study abroad
Rachel Bishop Jessup moot
Nicholas Booth Brussels-Geneva study abroad
Ann Carroll GIP/GEO externship
Emily Cox Vis moot
Jennifer Cross Student Ambassador
Alessandra Cunha Student Ambassador, Legal Spanish Study Group
Janis Dabbs GIP/GEO externship
Tiffany Donohue GIP/GEO externship
Pedro Dorado Dean Rusk International Law Center Fellow, leader of Legal Spanish Study Group
Brad Dumbacher GIP/GEO externship
Johann Ebongom LLM, Southeast Model African Union, Sohn Professional Development Fellow, AtlAS rapporteur
Ronald Fields Brussels-Geneva study abroad
Javier Gonzalez LLM
Katie Griffis GIP/GEO externship
Cassidy Grunninger GIP/GEO externship, Brussels-Geneva study abroad
Ahsan Habib LLM
Adrian Hanea LLM
Urvashi Jain LLM, IntLawGrrls conference presenter
Morgan Johnson GIP/GEO externship
Faith Khalik Student Ambassador
Carson Masters GIP/GEO externship
Valerie Mills LLM, Student Ambassador
Hamed Moradi Roodposhti LLM
Kristin Murphey Brussels-Geneva study abroad
Nelly Ndounteng LLM, Southeast Model African Union, Sohn Professional Development Fellow
Brenny Nguyen GIP/GEO externship
Amber O’Connell GIP/GEO externship, Brussels-Geneva study abroad
Lawrence Oise LLM
Gilbert Oladeinbo LLM
Noj Oyeyipo LLM
Waltrice Patterson GIP/GEO externship
Alyssa Pickett GIP/GEO externship, Student Ambassador
Robert Poole Jessup moot
Alessandro Raimondo Student Ambassador
Hannah Sells GIP/GEO externship, Brussels-Geneva study abroad
Emily Shannon Brussels-Geneva study abroad
Richie Steinberg GIP/GEO externship
Eric Sterling Student Ambassador
Ximena Vasquez Student Ambassador
Sarah Willis Student Ambassador
Jonah Zhang Student Ambassador, GIP/GEO externship

Class of 2018

Jeremy Akin Student Ambassador
Megan Alpert GEO externship, AtlAS rapporteur
Taryn Arbeiter Student Ambassador, Legal Spanish Study Group
Victoria Barker Student Ambassador, Vis moot, GEO externship, Sohn Professional Development Fellow, IntLawGrrls conference presenter (also, incoming Editor-in-Chief, Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law)
Danielle Berenson Student Ambassador, Legal Spanish Study Group
Holly Boggs Jessup moot
Chanel Chauvet Student Ambassador, IntLawGrrls conference presenter, Southeast Model African Union, Sohn Professional Development Fellow
Margaret Christie Legal Spanish Study Group
Preston Cox GEO externship
Davon Dennis Student Ambassador
Ruibo Dong Student Ambassador
Danielle Glover Student Ambassador
Karen Hays Student Ambassador
Maria Kachniarz Student Ambassador, Vis moot
Jared Magnuson Vis moot
Decker McMorris GEO externship
Deborah Nogueira Yates Student Ambassador, Sohn Professional Development Fellow, Legal Spanish Study Group
Claire Provano Student Ambassador, GEO externship
Elizabeth Rawlings Legal Spanish Study Group
Caroline Savini Jessup moot
Carson Stepanek GEO externship
Jamila Toussaint Student Ambassador
Wheaton Webb Vis moot
Hannah Williams Sohn Professional Development Fellow, GEO externship, IntLawGrrls conference presenter (also, International Law Society President)
Yun Yang Student Ambassador

Class of 2019

Shummi Chowdhury Student Ambassador, Southeast Model African Union
Brian Griffin Student Ambassador, AtlAS rapporteur, Legal Spanish Study Group
Amanda Hoefer Southeast Model African Union
Bailey Hutchison Student Ambassador
Lyddy O’Brien Sohn Professional Development Fellow
Matthew Poletti Legal Spanish Study Group
Rebecca Wackym Southeast Model African Union

From left, Laura Kagel, Britney Hardweare, Mandy Dixon, Valerie Mills, Hamed Moradi Roodposhti, Urvashi Jain, Noj Oyeyipo, Javier Gonzalez, Kathleen Doty, Ahsan Habib, Diane Marie Amann, Adrian Hanea

“Judicial Federalism in the European Union,” new article by Professor Wells

Professor Michael Lewis Wells, who holds the Marion and W. Colquitt Carter Chair in Tort and Insurance Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, has published an article comparing judicial practice in Europe and the United States. Entitled “Judicial Federalism in the European Union,” it appears at 54 Houston Law Review Winter ​697 (2017).

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:

This article compares European Union judicial federalism with the American version. Its thesis is that the European Union’s long-term goal of political integration probably cannot be achieved without strengthening its rudimentary judicial institutions. On the one hand, the EU is a federal system in which judicial power is divided between EU courts, of which there are only three, and the well-entrenched and longstanding member state court systems. On the other hand, both the preamble and Article 1 of the Treaty of Europe state that an aim of the European Union is “creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe.” The article argues that central government courts and member state courts are not fungible. In close cases, the latter are more likely than the former to favor the member state’s interests. The EU’s approach to judicial federalism, with its heavy reliance on member state courts, will retard the political integration envisioned by the Treaty. The article develops this thesis by comparing EU judicial federalism with the American variant, which differs from the EU system in two key respects: First, most issues of EU law are adjudicated in the member state courts. In the U.S., a network of lower federal courts adjudicates many federal law issues. Second, the U.S. Supreme Court reviews state court judgments that turn on issues of federal law. The Court of Justice of the European Union does not review member state judgments, even on issues of EU law. The article argues that these aspects of the federal system in the U.S. were indispensable to achieving and maintaining national unity. If the EU aspires to a similar level of political integration, their absence may prove to be a significant obstacle.

Professor Cade publishes in Georgia Bar Journal special immigration issue

Jason A. Cade, Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, has just published “Proportionality Lost? The Rise of Enforcement-Based Equity in the Deportation System and Its Limitations,” at 22 Georgia Bar Journal 16 (2017).

Cade teaches Immigration Law and directs the law school’s Community Health Law Partnership Clinic. His scholarship explores intersections between immigration enforcement and criminal law, the role of prosecutorial discretion in the modern immigration system, and judicial review of deportation procedures.

His latest article, featured in a GBJ special issue entitled “Public Interest Immigration Update,” may be downloaded at SSRN. Here’s the abstract:

This article briefly explains and critiques the legal framework that has made enforcement discretion the primary means of injecting proportionality and fairness into the modern deportation system. The article provides an overview of shifting approaches to this enforcement discretion under the Obama and Trump administrations, and describes some of the key Supreme Court jurisprudence interpreting this framework.

Distinguished India-based alumna, Priti Suri, earns prestigious ABA award

Delighted to congratulate of our our distinguished LL.M. alumnae, Priti Suri, recipient of one of the most prestigious American Bar Association awards. (photo credit)

The ABA Section of International Law bestowed its Mayre Rasmussen Award for the Advancement of Women in International Law upon Suri Wednesday, at a luncheon during the Section’s Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C. Regarding Suri’s award, the Section said:

“Priti’s role as a mentor and in opening doors for women and women lawyers in India make her the perfect candidate for the Mayre Rasmussen Award.”

In a LinkedIn post, Suri responded:

“I feel truly humbled, as the first Asian, to receive ABA’s Mayre Rasmussen career achievement award. To everyone who contributed – my incredible family, my friends, my co-workers, my teachers and to every single person who has been with me on this journey – a very big thank you. Miles and miles to go still….”

Suri is the founder-partner of PSA Legal Counsellors, an Indian business law firm with offices in New Delhi and Chennai. Its practice spans many industries, and includes cross-border M&A transactions, strategic investments, joint-ventures including tender and exchange offers, venture capital financings, structuring private equity deals, leveraged buyouts, and divestitures.

This week’s ABA honor comes not long after another: last October, Suri was named to the India Business Law Journal A-List of India’s top 100 lawyers.

Since earning her Master of Laws degree from in 1989, Suri has remained active in the University of Georgia School of Law community. She frequently welcomes Georgia Law students as part of our Global Externship Overseas, and she has been an officer of the LL.M. Alumni Association.

The ABA Rasmussen Award is named after “a pioneer in the field of international business law” who died in 1998, and is given

“to individuals who have achieved professional excellence in international law, encouraged women to engage in international law careers, enabled women lawyers to attain international law job positions from which they were excluded historically, or advanced opportunities for women in international law.”

Among the prior Rasmussen Award recipients is another member of our Georgia Law community, Associate Dean Diane Marie Amann.

Brava!

Washington week: Our Louis B. Sohn Fellows’ tour of D.C. monuments

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Gathering before the D.C. memorial to Atlanta-based Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: from left, Lyddy O’Brien, Chanel Chauvet, Nelly Sandra Ndounteng, Taryn Arbeiter, Kathleen A. Doty, Johann Ebongom, and Eric Health

During the 2017 American Society of International Law Annual Meeting earlier this month in Washington, D.C., members of our University of Georgia School of Law community took a break from volunteering to spend an evening touring the monuments on the National Mall.

On the tour were Georgia Law students who traveled from our Athens campus thanks to Louis B. Sohn Professional Development Fellowship grants awarded by the law school’s Dean Rusk International Law Center; they are: 1L Lyddy O’Brien, 2L Chanel Chauvet, and LLM candidates Johann Ebongom and Nelly Sandra Ndounteng. Chanel took part in the Annual Meeting as the recipient of a scholarship from the Blacks in ASIL Task Force, and the other Sohn Fellows volunteered at the annual meeting. They were joined in D.C. by another Annual Meeting volunteer, 2L Taryn Arbeiter, who is completing a full-time externship at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative as part of Georgia Law’s D.C. Semester in Practice initiative.

Pick 2.jpgLeading the monuments tour were Kathleen A. Doty, Director of Global Practice Preparation at the Dean Rusk International Law Center, and Eric Heath, who earned his Georgia Law J.D. degree in 2015 and now practices in D.C. as a Legislative Staffer in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In addition to MLK, the group visited the Lincoln, Korean War, and Roosevelt memorials. Afterwards, they shared a meal before returning to the ASIL events.

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Professor Hellerstein panelist at OECD value-added tax policy conference

Professor Walter Hellerstein served as panelist at a high-level meeting on tax policy in Paris, France, earlier this month.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Fourth Meeting of the Global Forum on VAT (value-added tax, known in some countries as goods and services tax, or GST), took place April 12-14 at the OECD’s conference center.

Participating in the Global Forum were senior tax officials, representatives of international organizations and business enterprises, and academics from around the world. Professor Hellerstein took part in two plenary panels, on “VAT/GST Design and Operations in the Digital Age: Lessons Learned,” and on “Addressing New VAT/GST Challenges and Increasing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of VAT Administration: Lessons Learned and Future Action.”

Hellerstein is Distinguished Research Professor & Francis Shackelford Distinguished Professor in Taxation Law Emeritus here at the University of Georgia School of Law. He is widely published on issues related to taxation in a global context, and last spring was a guest professor at the Vienna University of Economics & Business.

Amann elected Counselor of the American Society of International Law

Delighted to congratulate our own Associate Dean Diane Marie Amann on her election as Counselor of the American Society of International Law.

Founded in 1907, ASIL is the foremost learned society in the international law field. From its headquarters in Washington, D.C., ASIL fosters dialogue, hosts and cosponsors conferences, and produces the American Journal of International Law and other publications, on behalf of its thousands of members throughout the world.

ASIL’s governing board is the Executive Council. Advising and serving as nonvoting members of the Council are Counselors, senior ASIL members who have made significant contributions to the Society and to the study and development of international law. Amann was elected to the position at ASIL’s Annual Meeting earlier this month.

Amann’s election followed her service in many ASIL leadership positions: Vice President; Co-Chair of the 2012 ASIL Annual Meeting in Athens and Atlanta, Georgia; voting member of the Executive Council and its Executive Committee; Grotius Lecture Distinguished Discussant; and member of the ABA-ASIL Joint Task Force on Treaties in U.S. Law,  the Blacks in ASIL Task Force, the ASIL Judicial Advisory Board, and Program Committees for the 2012 Annual Meeting in Washington and for the 2007 ASIL-AALS Midyear Meeting in Vancouver. She is Editor-in-Chief of the ASIL Benchbook on International Law, and also has published in the American Journal of International Law, ASIL Annual Meeting Proceedings, and the ASIL-produced Proceedings of the International Humanitarian Law Dialogs.

In 2013, Amann received the Prominent Woman in International Law Award from ASIL’s Women in International Law Interest Group. Above, she delivers her award speech at the Annual Meeting while a cutout of Eleanor Roosevelt looks on.

At the University of Georgia School of Law – an ASIL Academic Partner – Amann holds the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law. Since 2015, she also has served as Associate Dean for International Programs & Strategic Initiatives; her duties include directing the law school’s 40-year-old Dean Rusk International Law Center. She teaches and publishes widely on issues related to public international law, international and transnational criminal law, the laws of war, international human rights law, and children & international law. She has served since 2012 as the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s Special Adviser on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict.

Cohen elected to American Journal of International Law Board of Editors

Delighted to congratulate our own Professor Harlan G. Cohen on his election to the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law.

AJIL, as it’s known, is the flagship publication of the Washington, D.C.-based American Society of International Law. Both were founded in 1907, with U.S. Secretary of State Elihu Root serving as ASIL’s 1st President, and scholar-diplomat James Brown Scott serving as AJIL‘s 1st top editor. Today, the quarterly Journal feature articles, editorials, and notes and comments by pre-eminent scholars. It’s not only one of the oldest, but also one of the most-cited peer-reviewed journals in international law and international relations.

Cohen’s election came earlier this month, when the AJIL Board met during ASIL’s Annual Meeting. It’s a well deserved honor for Cohen, who’s served for a number of years as Managing Editor of AJIL Unbound, the journal’s online platform, and held several ASIL leadership positions.

A member of our University of Georgia School of Law faculty since 2007, Cohen publishes and teaches in a range of international law areas, including trade, foreign affairs, global governance, and human rights. He is the inaugural holder of the Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professorship in International Law.

He contributes immensely to the initiatives of the law school’s Dean Rusk International Law Center, serving, among other things, as faculty advisor to our Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law (he was a principal organizer this academic year of the Georgia Law-International Committee of the Red Cross conference on the ICRC’s 2016 Commentary) and leader of our 10th International Law Colloquium series.

Alums Kaitlin Ball and Eric Heath publish in International Legal Materials

Delighted to see the bylines of 2 recent graduates of the University of Georgia School of Law in the newest edition of International Legal Materials.

An American Society of International Law publication, ILM reprints decisions, treaties, and other newly issued documents reflecting important developments in international law. Each is preceded by an Introductory Note which explains and analyzes the document. Contributing such Notes to Volume 56, Issue 1, of ILM –  available online via open access for a limited period – are:

► Kaitlin M. Ball (J.D. 2014), who is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Politics & International Studies, University of Cambridge, England. While at Georgia Law, Kaitlin served as Student President of the worldwide International Law Students Association, and was a Global Extern at the U.S. Department of State Office of Legal Adviser for Private International Law, at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe mission in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and at the nongovernmental organization Human Rights League in Bratislava, Slovakia. Her ILM Introductory Note is entitled “African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection.”

► Eric A. Heath (J.D. 2015), who serves on the Legislative Staff of U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pennsylvania) in Washington, D.C. Immediately before taking that position, Eric served as an ASIL Fellow and also earned his LL.M. degree in International Economic Law from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. While at Georgia Law, he was a Global Extern at UNESCO, in Paris, France, and published in our Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law. His ILM Introductory Note is entitled “Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (Kigali Amendment).”

Georgia Law team in Vienna for Vis International Arbitration Moot

Delighted to introduce the representatives of the University of Georgia School of Law who are competing this week in Vienna, Austria, at the 24th Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot. They continue a long Georgia Law tradition of participation in this annual event.

At either end are two Associates at King & Spalding LLP in Atlanta: Sara Sargeantson Burns, team coach, and Christopher Smith, who was a member of Georgia Law’s Vis team while earning his J.D. degree here; in the middle is 3L Emily Cox, a member of last year’s competition team and this year its student coach. Also pictured, from the left of Burns to right, are 2L team members Jared Magnuson, Victoria Barker, Maria Kachniarz, and Wheaton Webb.

Viel Glück!