Dean Rusk International Law Center

Notre Dame’s Emilia Justyna Powell presents “Compliance with Decisions of the Permanent Court of Arbitration” at Georgia Law

Emilia Justyna Powell, Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame, presented a talk entitled “Compliance with Decisions of the Permanent Court of Arbitration” at the University of Georgia School of Law earlier this week.

Powell presented her findings on the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s award compliance. She presented (qualitatively and quantitively) the underlying reasons for the difference in award compliance in State vs State disputes and Investor vs State Disputes.

Powell has written extensively on international law, international courts, territorial and maritime disputes, international dispute resolution, the Islamic legal tradition, and Islamic constitutionalism. Her prominent publications include a book published in Oxford University Press (2020) entitled Islamic Law and International Law: Peaceful Resolution of Disputes, a Cambridge University Press (2011) book, Domestic Law Goes Global: Legal Traditions and International Courts (with Sara McLaughlin Mitchell). Her new book, The Peaceful Resolution of Territorial and Maritime Disputes (with Krista E. Wiegand) has been published with Oxford University Press in 2023. Currently, professor Powell is working on several research projects devoted to international law, the global order, and constitutional studies: the Permanent Court of Arbitration (with Aníbal Pérez-Liñán), the International Maritime Organization (with Michael J. Atkins, JAG, US Coast Guard), human values in constitutions around the world (with Jarek Nabrzyski and Agnieszka Marczak-Czajka), the evolution of Afghan constitutional order (with Josh Paldino, JAG, US Army), customary law and international law in the world constitutions (with Christina Bambrick and Eric Lease Morgan), and Islamic militant groups’ behavior in the context of humanitarian law (with Jessica Stanton and Tanisha Fazal).

This event was co-sponsored by the Dean Rusk International Law Center and the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs.

Georgia Law Professor Christopher Bruner featured in Insurance Day

University of Georgia School of Law professor Christopher M. Bruner was featured in Insurance Day, published by London-based Lloyd’s List Intelligence. The article by Ben Margulies, titled “Can the UK Capture Captives?,” discusses the UK government’s effort to create a competitive captive insurance regime.

Bruner shared his thoughts on the factors that make a jurisdiction attractive for establishing captive domiciles, suggesting that smaller jurisdictions can offer fast and flexible policymaking processes. Their small size “makes co-ordination much easier among all the relevant public and private constituencies and it renders their commitment to attractive regulatory structures more credible. They’re highly dependent on these service offerings economically and the market knows it.” London, however, offers competitive advantages in its own right. “London’s main advantage is the extraordinary breadth and depth of corporate and financial services offerings in one place,” Bruner explains. “It’s the ultimate one-stop shop, including in risk management, which provides a strong foundation in the form of pre-existing professional and regulatory know-how.”

Christopher M. Bruner is the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law at the University of Georgia School of Law and serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center.

Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann presents working paper at International Law Colloquium

The University of Georgia School of Law’s spring 2025 International Law Colloquium welcomed Professor Diane Marie Amann, who presented her working paper, “Child-Taking Justice and Forced Residential Schooling of Indigenous Americans.”

Amann is Regents’ Professor of International Law, Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and a Faculty Co-Director of our Dean Rusk International Law Center here at Georgia Law. Amann served as International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s Special Adviser on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict and is a member of the Bring Kids Back UA Task Force.

Her presentation drew upon her recently-published article, “Child-Taking,” 45 Michigan Journal of International Law 305 (2024). Esra Mirze Santesso, Professor in the Department of English at the University of Georgia, as Amann’s faculty discussant. 

This year, Professor Desirée LeClercq is overseeing the colloquium, which is designed to introduce students to features of international economic law through engagement with scholars in the international legal field. To view the full list of International Law Colloquium speakers, visit our website.

This program is made possible through the Kirbo Trust Endowed Faculty Enhancement Fund and the Talmadge Law Faculty Fund

Dean Rusk International Law Center welcomes new Associate Director, Taher S. Benany

Taher S. Benany joined the University of Georgia School of Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center as associate director in January 2025.

In this role, he oversees global international training programs, including the Global Externships Overseas (GEO) initiative. He also collaborates with Center faculty and staff to plan and implement international law research initiatives, events and conferences, including the annual Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law conference.

Benany came to Georgia Law from the Shalakany Law Office in Cairo, Egypt, where he was a partner focusing on public international law, global disputes and government affairs for four years. In an earlier stint with the firm from 2014 to 2019, he was a senior associate focusing on public law, international litigation, compliance and government affairs. He also served as a public international law lecturer at the British University in Egypt and served as a public international law expert for the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation.

As a legal fellow for the United Nations Human Rights Council for an African state and an international organization, he drafted resolutions and interventions while preparing universal periodic reviews and legal opinions on international human rights instruments.

He earned his Bachelor of Laws from Cairo University in 2017, then continued his legal studies as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in Oral and Dental Medicine and Surgery from Misr International University in 2010, graduating as the valedictorian of his class and serving as a maxillofacial surgeon at the Munira Public Hospital for one year.

Benany speaks Arabic, English and French.   

Georgia Law Professor Walter Hellerstein presents at Vienna University of Economics and Business

Distinguished Research Professor & Shackelford Distinguished Professor in Taxation Law Emeritus Walter Hellerstein presented as part of a panel on taxable persons and related issues in VAT law at the Court of Justice of the European Union Conference held at the Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria during January. 

A description of the conference can be found below:

This conference will focus on the recent case law of the Court of Justice in the area of indirect taxation. The judgment rendered from September 2018 onwards and important previous judgments will be analyzed by panels consisting of leading academics, judges, government representatives and business representatives.

Hellerstein joined the University of Georgia School of Law faculty in 1978 and was named the Francis Shackelford Distinguished Professor in Taxation Law during 1999 and a UGA Distinguished Research Professor in 2011. He taught in the areas of state and local taxation, international taxation and federal income taxation until he retired from teaching at the School of Law in 2015. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and he remains actively involved in his scholarship, consulting and, in particular, his work as an academic advisor to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Luwam Dirar of Western New England University speaks at Georgia Law’s International Law Colloquium

The University of Georgia School of Law’s spring 2025 International Law Colloquium welcomed Professor Luwam Dirar of Western New England University School of Law as its second speaker last week.

Dirar presented her working paper titled, “Emancipation, Decolonization, and Gender in the Context of African Integration.” Dirar’s research and scholarly focus centers on international human rights law and the intersection of international economics and international relations. Dirar has also served as a consultant to several African governments and international organizations regarding migration and law.

Associate Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, Taher Benany, served as Dirar’s faculty discussant. Professor Desirée LeClercq is overseeing the colloquium, which is designed to introduce students to features of international economic law through engagement with scholars in the international legal field.

Below is an abstract of Dirar’s working paper:

The 1960s institutionalization and formalization of Africa’s continental integration was a manifestation of the ontological fragility of the concept of emancipation in the African context. As a concept, continental emancipation excluded concerns of women and formalized the divorce between decolonization and racial domination on the one hand and social emancipatory movements on the other. This divorce was contrary to the expectation of women who sought the end of colonial subjugation as a turning point for women’s emancipation from not only colonial and racial domination but also from social oppression. This article argues that the continental emancipation project betrayed the hopes of women who sought decolonization or the end of white racial domination as central to the end of gendered and gendering social subjugation. This article will have four parts. The first part will be a general introduction and will explore women’s emancipation in the context of regional integration studies. The second part will explore the internal contradictions of the concept of emancipation. The third part will explore the marketization of regional integration in Africa and the debates surrounding gender in trade agreements. The fourth part will be the conclusion and way forward.

To view the full list of International Law Colloquium speakers, visit our website. A summary of the previous week’s talk with Professor Harlan Cohen can be found here.

This program is made possible through the Kirbo Trust Endowed Faculty Enhancement Fund and the Talmadge Law Faculty Fund.

Georgia Law’s International Law Colloquium hosts Harlan Cohen, Fordham Law, as first speaker

The University of Georgia School of Law’s spring 2025 International Law Colloquium began last week with Professor Harlan Cohen of Fordham University School of Law. For more than a decade, the International Law Colloquium Series has brought leading scholars to Georgia Law, where they have presented works in progress and invited discussion and comments from students as well as faculty discussants.

This year, Professor Desirée LeClercq is overseeing the colloquium, which is designed to introduce students to features of international economic law through engagement with scholars in the international legal field. The course broadly defines “international economic law,” to include traditional approaches (trade and investment agreements) as well as non-traditional, emerging approaches (examining the effects of international economic law on marginalized communities and considering re-distributional policies).

Cohen presented his working paper titled, “The International Order, International Law, and the Definition of Security.” Cohen, who previously served as the Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law at the University of Georgia School of Law and Faculty co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, specializes in international trade, international law, international legal theory, global governance, and U.S. foreign relations law.

Dean Usha Rodrigues opened the colloquium (recording of opening remarks available here). Professor Diane Marie Amann served as Cohen’s faculty discussant. 

Below is an abstract of Cohen’s working paper:

As economic security has seemingly moved to the center of American and European foreign policy, both the United States and the European Union have broadened their interpretation of international law rules governing security, coercion, and intervention.  These broadened interpretations have supported a bevy of new sanctions, trade restrictions, investment controls, and industrial policies that have turned the global economy into an increasingly weaponized space.  But these interpretations are not exactly new, echoing developing state interpretations of international law that developed states had long ago seemingly rejected.  How are these once moribund interpretations of security, force, and coercion being brought back to life?

This essay argues that these interpretative shifts highlight the role of the international order as an interpretative mechanism within international law.  Borrowing from the work of Robert Cover, it explains the ways that the international order acts as a jurispathic agent within the system, judging which interpretations live on and which are cast aside.  As global power shifts, the international order shifts with it, potentially reopening interpretative fights over international law.  Today’s fights over the meaning of security, force, and coercion thus reflect both the realities of a changing order and the battle to shape the one to come.

To view the full list of International Law Colloquium speakers, visit our website.

This program is made possible through the Kirbo Trust Endowed Faculty Enhancement Fund and the Talmadge Law Faculty Fund.

Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann publishes in Temple symposium on Sands’ Chagos book

“What Figures Lurk on Madame Elysé’s Path? Reflections on Philippe Sands’ The Last Colony,” an article by University of Georgia School of Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, has just been published at 38 Temple International & Comparative Law Journal 91 (2024).

Amann is Regents’ Professor of International Law, Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and a Faculty Co-Director of our Dean Rusk International Law Center here at Georgia Law.

The “What Figures”  article is her contribution to the journal’s symposium issue based on a book about the Chagos Islands and the International Court of Justice advisory opinion, written by University College London Law Professor Philippe Sands, who was a barrister in those proceedings.

The issue also includes a foreword by Sands and a co-authored dialogue between Diane F. Orentlicher and Morton H. Halperin, as well as articles by Dan Bodansky, Christopher J. Borgen, Jorge Contesse, Peter G. Danchin, Jeffrey Dunoff, Margaret M. deGuzman, Mark A. Drumbl, Jean Galbraith, Rachel López, Jonathan H. Marks, Elizabeth Nwarueze, Obiora Chinedu Okafor, Ayodeji Kamau Perrin, and Sebastian von Massow.

Here’s the abstract for Amann’s article, which is available here:

“One person’s life forms the core around which Philippe Sands’ The Last Colony explores the events leading up to the advisory opinion on the Legal Consequences of Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965. That person is Liseby Bertrand Elysé, who was born in 1953 in Chagos, then forcibly removed to Mauritius in 1973. Her efforts to return home eventually brought her to a 2018 hearing at The Hague, where she spoke to the International Court of Justice bench by means of a subtitled video. This essay, which appears in a symposium issue on Sands’ book, investigates the ethics, the effectiveness, and the emancipatory potential of the author’s telling of the story of the Chagossian woman he most often calls ‘Madame Elysé.’”

Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann publishes in European Journal of International Law

“A Nuremberg Woman and the Hague Academy,” an essay by University of Georgia School of Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, has just been published at European Journal of International Law 813 (2024).

Amann is Regents’ Professor of International Law, Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and a Faculty Co-Director of our Dean Rusk International Law Center here at Georgia Law.

Her article, which draws upon her ongoing research into lawyers and other women professionals played at post-World War II trials, forms part of the journal’s special review series marking the centenary of the Hague Academy of International Law.

Available here, the article focuses on the life of one “Nuremberg woman,” Dr. Aline Chalufour, who attended the Academy in 1937 and again in 1957. Her experiences both shed light on how marginalized groups fared in the Academy’s first 100 years, and also call upon the Academy, and the field it promotes, to do better in the next 100 years.

Georgia Law Professor Assaf Harpaz presents at the HUJI Tax Law Forum

University of Georgia School of Law Professor Assaf Harpaz presented his draft paper “Global Tax Wars in the Digital Era” at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Tax Law Forum during December.

Below is an abstract of the paper:

International tax debates often center on how to fairly allocate taxing rights on the profits of multinational enterprises, carrying significant global economic implications. When a business earns income abroad, the country of residence (where the taxpayer resides) and the country of source (where income is generated) both have legitimate, competing claims to tax that income. The international tax system favors residence-based taxation. The source country has the right to tax business profits only if the enterprise carries on a permanent establishment in its borders, which typically requires physical presence. The permanent establishment standard becomes flawed in a digital economy where profit shifting practices are abundant and businesses no longer require a physical presence in the location of their online consumers.

These enduring norms are poised to change with an upcoming United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation – an initiative overwhelmingly supported by Global South economies. The Global North has historically dominated the international tax regime through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), informally known as the “World Tax Organization”. A UN framework convention could introduce new standards to address the tax challenges of digitalization, though it would need to bridge the underlying North-South divide.

This article explores the “tax wars” surrounding the leadership for global tax governance, contrasting the taxing powers and interests of the OECD-led Global North with those of the UN-backed Global South. It argues for a shift toward source-based taxation by revisiting the permanent establishment standard. This transition will address longstanding inequities and is increasingly warranted in a digital economy that does not rely on physical presence.

 Assaf Harpaz joined University of Georgia School of Law as an assistant professor in summer 2024 and teaches classes in federal income tax and business taxation. Harpaz’s scholarly focus lies in international taxation, with an emphasis on the intersection of taxation and digitalization. He explores the tax challenges of the digital economy and the ways to adapt 20th-century tax laws to modern business practices.