This group of fourteen hails from eleven different countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, including Nigeria, Guatemala, Ghana, Brazil, Bangladesh, Kenya, Germany, Republic of Korea, France, Nepal, and Canada. Among them are lawyers specializing in a wide range of fields including mergers and acquisitions, oil, gas, and energy law, family law, criminal law, corporate law, human rights law; immigration law, civil litigation, international trade law, sports law, securities law, and international humanitarian law.
They are pictured above. From the left to right – top row: Daniel Köhl, Ofure Odia, Victor Nsoh Azure, Ane Caroline Ferri Victoria, Caroline Wambui Kamau, Ji Hun Lee, Andrei Niveaux; bottom row: Emmanuel Adetoyan, Bushra Haque, Anu Paudel, Yendira Luisa Alpirez Orantes, Shraddha Prasai, Catherine Gbikpi Benissan, Chantelle Pleasant
This Class of 2025 joins 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 five decades, the law school and its Dean Rusk International Law Center have produced around 600 LL.M. graduates, with ties to nearly 100 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 coursework affording advancement in their home country’s legal profession or academic institutions.
University of Georgia School of Law Professor Diane Marie Amann served as a panelist in a recent webinar hosted by the World Affairs Council of Atlanta entitled “Defining Statehood: Law, Legitimacy, and Global Power”. Amann was joined in conversation by fellow panelist Gëzim Visoka, Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, and moderator Rickey Bevington, President of the World Affairs Council of Atlanta.
Below is a description of the webinar from the event’s webpage:
What Does It Mean to Be a State in the 21st Century?
The definition of statehood remains one of the most complex and contested questions in international law and global politics. While the 1933 Montevideo Convention offers a four-part framework—population, territory, government, and capacity for international relations—real-world statehood is shaped just as much by recognition, legitimacy, and geopolitical power.
In today’s multipolar world, where contested territories, partial recognition, and non-state actors challenge traditional norms, how do we define what it means to be a state?
Amann is Regents’ Professor of International Law and holds the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. Also serving as a Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, she is a former Associate Dean for International Programs & Strategic Initiatives. During summer and fall 2025, she is in the United Kingdom serving as a Visiting Academic at University College London Faculty of Laws.
Today, we welcome a guest post by Daniel “Tripp” Vaughn, a member of the University of Georgia School of Law class of 2025. Vaughn participated in a semester-long international externship in spring 2025. The semester-long externships overseas initiative is an extension of the Center’s existing Global Externships Overseas and is offered jointly between the Center and the law school’s Clinical and Experiential Program. Vaughn’s post describes his experience as a legal extern with Van Bael & Bellis, a law firm working on EU and national competition law, EU trade and customs law, regulatory law, as well as Belgian business law. Vaughn was based in Brussels, Belgium, where he worked under Georgia Law alumnus Porter Elliott (J.D. ’96).This was Vaughn’s third Global Externship Overseas during his time at Georgia Law. He is now living in Leuven, Belgium, where he is pursuing a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree at KU Leuven.
Last spring, I spent my final semester of law school working as a legal extern at Van Bael & Bellis (VBB), a Belgian law firm consisting of three offices in London, Brussels, and Geneva. VBB specializes in European and international legal work across three main categories: trade, antitrust, and corporate regulatory compliance. The firm’s composition truly represents its international focus, employing attorneys from more than 20 different countries. Just my office alone was shared with interns from Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Germany, and Spain.
This international diversity, strongly reminiscent of the city of Brussels itself, created a uniquely open-minded and welcoming atmosphere at the firm. Every day, whether through work projects or casual conversations, I learned more about countries and legal systems all across the world. The sheer breadth of nationalities, experiences, and perspectives held by VBB’s attorneys ensured that everyone in the office was still expanding their understanding of business and law. In this context, it was clear throughout the firm that questions were not only expected but also encouraged. As an extern, this atmosphere afforded me an incredible opportunity to add to my knowledge and experience before graduating law school.
This open mentality compounded the impact from my involvement in VBB’s extremely varied legal work, spanning from sanctions compliance and antidumping investigations to client alerts on upcoming legislation and updating internal materials on EU antitrust laws. I gained firsthand experience working on US-EU and EU-China trade disputes, including assessing tariffs and determining the correct classifications for products. When the EU proposed new legislation, I researched its impacts and together with expert attorneys wrote alerts for specifically affected clients as well as general takeaways. As part of my externship I also assisted many other tasks as well, including me in projects in over 20 different countries with different legal systems and approaches to corporate law.
However, of these many fascinating projects I had the opportunity to work on during my externship, sanctions compliance proved to be the most impactful and enduring. This work included researching involved parties of proposed transactions to ensure that the actions contemplated would pose minimal compliance risks from a sanctions perspective. While simple in concept, sanctioned parties would often go to great lengths to disguise their presence in transactions through strings of shell companies across the globe and the suppression of any information related to their ownership. Further complications often arose from the differences between UK, US, and EU sanction regimes, including the scope of sanctions, the jurisdiction of corresponding regulatory agencies, and the applicable penalties for noncompliance.
Despite these challenges, I began to increasingly enjoy the research and analysis required. Tracking down the ownership and control of various companies, which is often not openly disclosed information, consisted of sifting through media articles, social media posts, NGO reports, and other publicly accessible data such as ship transponders and locations. This process often felt like solving a particularly difficult puzzle, piecing together various clues to get a clearer picture of the involved parties and sanctions risks. Due to the lack of available information, many times the ownership or control of involved parties could not be definitively determined. However, it was incredibly satisfying when hours or days of research and seemingly unrelated shreds of information finally came together and yielded important conclusions.
I am extremely grateful for the experiences and opportunities given to me by Van Bael & Bellis. My time with the many talented attorneys at the firm opened my eyes to fields and career opportunities in international law that I never would have believed existed. As I am currently returning to Belgium for my Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree at KU Leuven, I am confident that my time with VBB will prove invaluable to me.
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Applications are open for spring 2026 semester-long Global Externships Overseas (GEOs). All current 2Ls and 3Ls are invited to submit an application by September 15. For more information and the application, please email: ruskintlaw@uga.edu
The fifth annual Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit brought together the world’s leading defenders of religious liberty for conversation between religious leaders, scholars, and advocates about the future of religious liberty. The Summit’s theme at the 2025 Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit is Political Authority, Civil Society, and Religious Freedom.
Over 100 leading scholars, faith leaders, and advocates gathered in Dublin, Ireland. During the three days of the summit, more than 20 speakers will participate in 6 panel discussions. Featured topics included:
Suppression of Religion in the Global South
Combating Religious Oppression by Powerful States
Threats to Civil Society – Religious Education
Threats to Civil Society – Religious Social Service Providers
Suppression of Religion in Hong Kong and China
Persecution of Christians Worldwide
Chapman currently serves as the law school’s associate dean for faculty development and holds the Cleveland Distinguished Chair of Law. He writes and teaches about constitutional law, especially constitutional rights, and law and religion. Most recently, he is the author, with Michael W. McConnell, of Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Promotes Religious Pluralism and Protects Freedom of Conscience (OUP, 2023).
Harrold, one of the founders of the World Law Group, describes milestones in Atlanta’s international growth dating back to Governor George Busbee’s initiatives in the 1970s to the development of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Delta Airline’s international connectivity, and local leaders thinking globally, including Coca-Cola’s Robert Woodruff and civil rights leaders.
The interview concludes with Harrold’s belief in the importance of nurturing a future generation of globally-minded citizens:
As he looks ahead, Mr. Harrold remains confident that Atlanta and Georgia’s competitive advantages—combined with a welcoming business environment—will continue to attract foreign investment for years to come.
“At the end of the day, we need people that can communicate with workers in the workforce, and then great incentives that the state and local governments provide to new industries coming in,” Mr. Harrold said.
“We need our young people to look out and see there’s a whole other world out there. They need to travel and go see these other countries, so they can have a real appreciation for an international career—and then come back to Georgia.”
A 1969 graduate of the law school, Harrold leads Miller & Martin’s International/World Law Group practice. He has for many years worked with European and Asian companies investing in the Southeastern United States and with American companies that have been expanding around the globe. He previously served as the deputy commissioner of the Georgia Department of Revenue, and he has been instrumental in navigating significant pro-economic legislation through the Georgia General Assembly. He is a founder of the World Law Group, an international legal network with over 6o member firms with offices in 92 countries. In 2009, he was awarded the Cross of Merit of Germany by President Horst Köhler. He is presently a member of the law school’s Board of Visitors.
Defining the scope of the Constitution’s application outside U.S. territory is more important than ever. In February, the Supreme Court heard oral argument about whether the Constitution applies when a U.S. officer shoots a Mexican teenager across the border. At the same time, federal courts across the country scrambled to evaluate the constitutionality of an Executive Order that, among other things, deprived immigrants of their right to reenter the United States. Yet the extraterritorial reach of the Due Process Clause—the broadest constitutional limit on the government’s authority to deprive persons of “life, liberty, or property”—remains obscure.
Up to now, scholars have uniformly concluded that the founding generation did not understand due process to apply abroad, at least not to aliens. This Article challenges that consensus. Based on the historical background, constitutional structure, and the early practice of federal law enforcement on the high seas, this Article argues that the founding generation understood due process to apply to any exercise of federal law enforcement, criminal or civil, against any person anywhere in the world. Outside the context of war, no one believed that a federal officer could deprive a suspect of life, liberty, or property without due process of law— even if the capture occurred abroad or the suspect was a noncitizen.
This history supports generally extending due process to federal criminal and civil law enforcement, regardless of the suspect’s location or citizenship. This principle has immediate implications for cross-border shootings, officially sponsored kidnappings and detentions abroad, the suspension of immigration benefits, and the acquisition of foreign evidence for criminal defendants.
Chapman currently serves as the law school’s associate dean for faculty development and holds the Cleveland Distinguished Chair of Law. He writes and teaches about constitutional law, especially constitutional rights, and law and religion. Most recently, he is the author, with Michael W. McConnell, of Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Promotes Religious Pluralism and Protects Freedom of Conscience (OUP, 2023).
University of Georgia School of Law Professor Desirée LeClercq recently organized and funded (through a grant won at Cornell University) a transnational conference of U.S., Mexican, and Canadian labor unions and leaders at Flacso Mexico in Mexico City. Patricia Campos-Medina (WI-ILR Cornell University), Alex Covarrubias (El Colegio de Sonora), and Cirila Quintero (El Colegio de la Frontera Norte) served as conference co-organizers.
This one-day transnational labor conference solicited the views of labor unions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), organizers, and workers on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)’s Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) in light of current geopolitical dynamics. Participants identified current challenges in filing petitions under the RRM, aligned strategic approaches to the 2026 re-negotiation of the USMCA, and discussed ways to work together notwithstanding current tensions in politics and trade. The conference was structured to first discuss the RRM on a technical level before broadening to account for political tensions and joint transnational strategies. It concluded with ways participants could remain organized and collaborate in the future.
LeClercq joined the University of Georgia School of Law in 2024 as an assistant professor. She teaches International Trade and Workers Rights, International Labor Law, International Law and U.S. Labor Law. She also serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center and as the faculty adviser for the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law.
University of Georgia School of Law’s Foreign and International Law Librarian Anne Burnett presented “Legal Research Reimagined: AI, Exams, and the Global Legal Mindset” for the Jacksonville Urban League Center for Advocacy and Social Justice on July 14, 2025. She discussed the rapidly-evolving impact of artificial intelligence on legal research and legal education as well as providing an introduction to the variety of paths and opportunities for international lawyers.
Burnett has been the foreign and international law librarian at the University of Georgia School of Law Alexander Campbell King Law Library since 1996. Burnett serves as the primary provider of reference services for the international, foreign and comparative law collections and is a member of the library’s research team. Burnett also teaches courses in international legal research, advanced legal research and the LL.M. Legal System of the United States course.
Burnett’s previous law library experience includes the Legislative Reference Library in Austin, TX, and the Young Law Library at the University of Arkansas School of Law. Her other professional legal experience includes working as deputy legislative counsel at the Legislative Counsel Bureau for the Nevada Legislature in Carson City, NV. She also worked as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Deborah A. Agosti, Second Judicial District Court, State of Nevada. Burnett is a member of the state bars of California and Nevada. She is active in the American Association of Law Libraries, the International Federation of
University of Georgia School of Law Professor Desirée LeClercq recently delivered a presentation on the future of multilateralism, trade, and worker rights to World Trade Organization officials and researchers in Geneva, Switzerland.
LeClercq received financial support to attend this workshop from the Dean Rusk International Law Center as a Rusk Scholar-in-Residence, an initiative promoting international opportunities for Georgia Law faculty that advance the mission of the Center.
LeClercq joined the University of Georgia School of Law in 2024 as an assistant professor. She teaches International Trade and Workers Rights, International Labor Law, International Law and U.S. Labor Law. She also serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center and as the faculty adviser for the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law.
This article explores regulatory mismatches, differences in regulations between different states, in the United States and the European Union, focusing on their differing approaches to market integration and regulatory diversity. The US emphasizes state autonomy, allowing regulatory pluralism to foster local experimentation and reflect diverse democratic preferences.
The Supreme Court’s handling of mismatches through balancing tests in decisions like Pike v. Bruce Church (1970), is limited and inconsistent, with a preference for leaving unresolved issues to Congress. In contrast, the EU prioritizes legislative and, to a lesser extent, judicial, harmonization and mutual recognition, with the Court of Justice rigorously reviewing member-state regulations for necessity, proportionality, and compatibility with fundamental market freedoms. Recent trends toward subsidiarity, however, signal a growing respect for national diversity. Both unions weigh state and market interests, but the United States tends to see regulatory diversity as a federalism benefit, whereas the EU views harmonization as essential to its integration goals.
Harpaz joined the 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.
exchange of notes 