LeClercq joined the University of Georgia School of Law in 2024 as an assistant professor. She teaches Contracts, International Trade and Workers Rights, International Labor Law, U.S. Labor Law, and Public International 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, the Labor and Employment Student Association, and the International Law Students Association.
Mandy Dixon, International Professional Education Manager of the University of Georgia School of Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center, recently attended the NAFSA 2026 Annual Conference and Expo hosted in Orlando, Florida.
The NAFSA Annual Conference and Expo is the world’s largest gathering of international education professionals, dedicated to advancing global learning, student mobility, and cross-cultural exchange. Under this year’s theme, “Global by Design,” conference discussions covered topics such as admissions quality, agile leadership, student recruitment, and the growing impact of AI.
Dixon attended a number of panel discussions about international education, including one led by the International Student Resource Center (ISRC) featuring Robin Catmur-Smith, former Director of Immigration Services at the University of Georgia’s Office of Global Engagement. Catmur-Smith now serves as Director at ISRC.
Dixon joined Georgia Law in 2016. Her primary duties in this role involve overseeing the admissions process for the Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree for foreign-trained lawyers, including recruitment of prospective students, application review, and notification of admission and scholarship decisions. In addition, she organizes international trainings and coordinates the hosting of visiting researchers and scholars.
12 students from the University of Georgia School of Law participated in the 2026 Global Governance Summer School, operated in partnership with KU Leuven’s Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies and administered by the Dean Rusk International Law Center. GGSS continues a decades-long tradition of international study in Brussels for Georgia Law students started by the Charles H. Kirbo Professor of International law Gabriel Wilner. Led this year by Georgia Law Professor Cathy Clutter, the program took place during the final two weeks of May and examined global governance through the lens of comparative environmental law and sustainability in three locations: Brussels, Belgium; Leuven, Belgium; and The Hague, Netherlands.
Brussels, Belgium
After arriving in Brussels, students started out with a walking tour of the city. Along the way, students were able to see a number of famous landmarks, including Les Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, the Cathédrale des Saints-Michel-et-Gudule, the Mont des Arts, Bourse Beurs, the Manneken Pis, and the Grand Place. The group learned about how the unique history of Brussels led to the city’s current position as the primary political, administrative, and legislative heart of the European Union.
The academic component of the program in Brussels included a number of site visits and briefings, including:
NATO: students heard from Christopher Lozo, Office Director at Air Force Office of the General Counsel – Europe; Major Anya Nikogosian, Deputy Staff Judge Advocate; and Christopher Van der Waerden, Associate General Counsel
European Economic and Social Committee: Anna Katharina Cameron, Head of Sector on the European Green Deal, and Mr. Lukáš Ďurech, Assistant for the Agriculture, Rural Development, and the Environment Section, gave students an overview of the EESC and its work to advocate on behalf of the interests of European civil society
Council of the European Union: the group received a briefing about the Council and its work from Stefano Loi, who led a discussion about the Council’s role in the EU’s legislative process
Van Bael & Bellis: students heard from Georgia Law alumnus Porter Elliott (J.D. ‘96), Partner, who co-heads VBB’s EU competition team, and David Hull (J.D. ’83), Partner Emeritus, who also specializes in EU competition law
European Commission: Monika Senkel, from the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy, Legal Affairs, and Jurgen Salay, from the Directorate-General for Climate Action, provided a briefing on EU climate policy, its evolution through practical implementation, and how the EU offers economic support to its Member States to achieve its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050
European Parliament: students learned about the history and makeup of the European Parliament and how it functions alongside the Council of the European Union, the European Council, and the Commission from Soren Dalsgaard
BonelliErede: Omar Diaz and Agnese Clementoni Cherubini—both from BonelliErede’s Antitrust and Regulatory Practice Group—gave a presentation about their firm’s work in EU State aid law, environmental protection, and energy policies in EU treaties
Students began with a walking tour of the city, learning about the history of Leuven and visiting iconic landmarks like Leuven’s medieval city walls, the waterways running through the city, the Oude Markt, the historic town hall, and St. Peter’s Church.
Afterwards, students dove into two days of coursework. Professor Cathy Clutter presented lectures about the “triple P bottom line”—people, planet, and profit—examining how they are impacted by sustainability practices and requirements. discussed the topic of environmental justice, using climate migration as a case study. Students considered whether or not environmental inequities should be addressed at the governmental or individual level, and watched several short clips to demonstrate different perspectives and recent news stories related to the topic. Professor Clutter also focused on integrating lessons learned throughout their site visits in Brussels and the program’s readings.
On Sunday, students were joined by Georgia law alumnus Daniel “Tripp” Vaughn (J.D. ’25), who participated in Georgia Law’s summer 2023 Global Governance Summer School. Tripp is currently enrolled in the Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree program at KU Leuven and spoke with students about his decision to pursue an LL.M. and experiences as an LL.M. student in Belgium. Afterwards, he joined students for an afternoon at the Oude Markt while answering student questions about his time at KU Leuven.
Dr. Gustavo Gayger Muller, Senior Researcher at the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, spoke about the European Union, regional organizations, and global governance
Dr. Axel Marx, The Centre’s Deputy Director, addressed the challenge of sustainability, comparing global and EU approaches
Dr. Kari Otteburn, postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, presented on EU trade policy and autonomous measures
Dr. Philip De Man, Senior Researcher at the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, who discussed the law of international organizations and the governance of outer space
Prof. Dr. Jan Wouters, Full Professor of International Law and International Organizations, Jean Monnet Chair ad personam EU and Global Governance, and founding Director of the Institute for International Law and of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, delivered a lecture about EU-US relations and the America Europe Fund
The Hague, Netherlands
For the final third of the program, students traveled to The Hague, Netherlands, which is known informally as the judicial capital of the world. The Hague is home to many international courts including the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, and more than 150 international organizations.
The academic component of the program in The Hague included a number of site visits and briefings, including:
The International Court of Justice (ICJ): students met with Paul Heckler, Associate Legal Officer, who provided us with a brief history of the ICJ, a description of how it functions, and its recent Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change. Liyu Feng, Judicial Fellow, gave students a tour of the interior of the Peace Palace
Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA): Luke Connell, Assistant Legal Counsel, spoke to students both about the history of the PCA and its current work in environmental arbitration
World Arbitration Update: students attended one of the afternoon panel discussions, “What is the Impact of the ICJ and other International Courts Advisory Opinion on Climate Change Obligations in Energy and Mining Disputes?” This panel focused on the practical consequences of the ICJ’s Climate Change Advisory Opinion, specifically including disputes related to mining, natural resources and energy, at the merits stage
International Criminal Court (ICC): students visited the ICC’s courtroom and learned about the ICC’s structure, history, and current work
Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Vanuatu in The Hague: Elly van Vliet, the Honorary Consul General of the Republic of Vanuatu in The Hague, gave students a briefing about her work with Vanuatu to advocate for ecocide to be adopted as the fifth international crime under the Rome Statute. She concluded her briefing with a simple yet impactful observation on the value of having passion for what you do: “If you care, you can do a lot.”
On the program’s final full day in The Hague, the students gathered for a canal tour of the city. The tour guide, a retired teacher, gave a wonderful historical overview of the city. He shared anecdotes about a number of industries that relied on the waterways to transport goods—and also to get rid of waste. Environmental laws, policies, and regulations are very much interwoven into the story of The Hague’s development as a major global city.
The group then ended the evening at a local rooftop restaurant for a final meal and to conclude this year’s program. Students organized paper plate awards, recognizing the unique contributions of their peers to the program over the two week study abroad program.
Students have since left The Hague and have begun their summer jobs, many of them abroad through the Center’s Global Externships Overseas initiative. The Center looks forward to seeing how the experience of spending two weeks in Belgium & The Netherlands plays a role in their upcoming academic decisions, their short- and long-term professional journeys, and their personal perceptions of global governance, environmental law, and sustainability.
Tax sovereignty is traditionally understood to encompass a government’s right to design and enforce its tax laws without infringement. The principle has been frequently invoked in the context of multilateral initiatives to combat tax competition and evasion, yet it remains vague and underdeveloped. In recent years, international taxation has been characterized by an increase in national revenue preservation, forum-shopping, and unilateralism. These dynamics are reflected in the Trump administration’s rejection of the Global Tax Deal, the efforts of developing countries to shift tax policymaking to the United Nations, and the proliferation of unilateral digital services taxes.
This Article proposes a doctrinal account of tax sovereignty for an international tax order in which cooperation and standardization are progressively contested. It draws on tax and international law scholarship to distinguish between procedural sovereignty, which includes the state’s authority to freely participate in cooperative forums, and substantive sovereignty, which refers to the right to independently draft tax legislation. The Article ultimately argues that tax sovereignty should operate as a doctrine with well-defined parameters rather than an unrestricted claim of fiscal autonomy. In doing so, it provides a framework for evaluating competing claims of tax sovereignty and assessing the legitimacy of tax policies with cross-border implications.
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.
University of Georgia School of Law Professor Desirée LeClercq was elected to the editorial board of the International Labor Rights Case Law(ILaRC) journal. The ILaRC journal is a leading academic publication that annotates and analyzes global jurisprudence regarding fundamental rights at the workplace.
LeClercq joined the University of Georgia School of Law in 2024 as an assistant professor. She teaches Contracts, International Trade and Workers Rights, International Labor Law, U.S. Labor Law, and Public International 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, the Labor and Employment Student Association, and the International Law Students Association.
In the upcoming fall semester, two University of Georgia School of Law students will gain international hands-on learning experience through the Global Externships Overseas (GEO) initiative, administered by the Dean Rusk International Law Center in partnership with the DC Semester in Practice: Olivia Haas (J.D. ’27) and Lauren Parramore (J.D. ’27). Through their GEOs, students will work abroad in practice areas including international humanitarian law and international arbitration, respectively.
Haas will work with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, Switzerland, and will be supervised by Dr. Jean-Marie Henckaerts (LL.M. ’90). Parramore will spend her semester with Bodenheimer law firm in Cologne and Berlin, Germany, under the supervision of Dr. Christof Siefarth (LL.M. ’86).
Parramore has been selected as the recipient of a grant from the Halle Foundation to support her externship in Germany. Based in Atlanta, The Halle Foundation seeks to promote understanding, knowledge and friendship between the people of Germany and the United States. Parramore is the fifth Georgia Law student to receive this grant to support a semester-long GEO in Germany, following Jack Buckelew (J.D. ’25), Pace Cassell (J.D. ’26), Eleanor Cox (J.D. ’26), and William Stowers (J.D. ’27).
Since spring 2021, seventeen Georgia Law students have participated in semester-long GEOs, an extension of the Center’s existing GEO initiative that is offered jointly between the Center and the law school’s Clinical and Experiential Program. Professor Jessica L. Heywood, Clinical Associate Professor and Washington, D.C., Semester in Practice Director, teaches and directs students externing abroad in partnership with Taher Benany, Associate Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, who oversees the GEO initiative. Like Georgia Law’s summer GEOs, semester-long GEOs are legal placements around the world that offer all law students the opportunity to gain practical knowledge and experience in an international setting. They are typically supervised in their work by Georgia Law alumni. Students return to Athens with new colleagues and mentors, legal practice skills that set them apart from their peers, and a deeper appreciation of the global legal profession.
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The Center is currently accepting applications for spring 2027 semester-long GEOs; all rising 2L and 3L students are eligible to apply. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. For more information and to access the application, please email Taher Benany: taher.benany@uga.edu
University of Georgia School of Law Professor Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge published “International Arbitration and Conflicts of Law: Three Hard Questions for Symeon” in 60 Willamette Law Review 805 (2025).
Rutledge holds the Talmadge Chair of Law. From 2015 through 2024, he served as dean of the University of Georgia School of Law. He is the author of the book Arbitration and the Constitution and co-author with Gary Born of the book International Civil Litigation in United States Courts. His works have been published by the Yale University Press, the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press, and his articles have appeared in a diverse array of journals such as The University of Chicago Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review and the Journal of International Arbitration. He also regularly advises parties on matters of international dispute resolution (litigation and arbitration).
This month, the University of Georgia School of Law hosted a delegation from Rio de Janeiro State University (“UERJ”) in Brazil. The two-day visit explored a range of opportunities for institutional collaboration, including legal trainings and faculty exchanges. UERJ is a top-ranked public research university in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and its law school is one of the oldest in Brazil.
The UERJ delegation included Mr. Henrique Couto da Nóbrega, UERJ’s Chief Legal Officer; Dr. Rose Melo Vencelau Meireles, Adjunct Professor of Civil Law at UERJ; and Ms. Hannah Coutinho, Division Chief and Financial Advisor for Mr. Nóbrega. The meeting was facilitated by Georgia Law alumnus and Rusk Council Advisory member Mr. Alexandre Jorge Fontes Laranjeira (LL.M. ’23). They met with Dean Usha R. Rodrigues, University Professor & M.E. Kilpatrick Chair of Corporate Finance and Securities Law; Center staff Sarah Quinn, Taher Benany, Mandy Dixon, and Lindsay Weinmann; and Lynne Moore Nelson, Executive Director of the Institute of Continuing Judicial Education.
The University of Georgia School of Law’s Foreign and International Law Librarian Anne Burnett received the Hall of Fame Award from the American Association of Law Libraries, honoring her contributions to the profession and her proven track record of excellence in her career as “noteworthy, substantial, and long-standing.”
Burnett is the fourth person associated with the Alexander Campbell King Law Library to win this award. The other winners were previous law library directors Erwin Surrency, Ann Puckett, and Carol A. Watson.
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.
Today, we welcome a guest post by William Stowers, a member of the University of Georgia School of Law class of 2027. Stowers is the seventeenth Georgia Law student to participate in a semester-long international externship and the fourth recipient of a grant from the Halle Foundation to support his externship in Germany. 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. Stowers’ post describes his experience as a legal extern with Bodenheimer, a German law firm specializing in international arbitration. Stowers spent time in both Bodenheimer’s Cologne and Berlin offices, where he worked under Georgia Law alumnus Dr. Christof Siefarth (LL.M., ’86). Dr. Siefarth, who is also a member of the Dean Rusk International Law Center’s Advisory Council, is a Partner at Bodenheimer.
“Say yes to everything.” Professor Jessica Heywood gave my classmates and me this advice on the first day of our seminar for our semester-long Global Externships Overseas (GEOs). At the time, I had yet to depart for my semester in Germany or start my externship with Bodenheimer under Dr. Christof Siefarth (LL.M. ’86). Little did I know just what taking that advice would look like over the next three months.
I was greeted on the first day of my externship with flowers, a laptop, and an onboarding list. For those of us who had prior careers and externships, a first day is almost comforting in its regularity. After onboarding came lunch with my “BOB,” BODENHEIMER’s version of a mentor. My BOB was just a couple of doors down, and would be there for me throughout my time in Cologne and at the firm. During our first lunch, the following exchange took place:
“Oh, it’s great that you’ll be here for Karneval.”
“I’m sorry, for what?”
Looking back, this exchange brings a smile to my face. Carnival, or Karneval, is of course the Catholic celebration preceding Lent. I have seen videos of my friends revel in the streets and on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro for this February bacchanal, but I figured that this was an isolated event. As it turns out, Cologne loves Carnival, and it is apparently the second largest celebration for the event in the world. However, before the festivities began, I of course had real work to do.
Almost immediately, I became involved in my very first international commercial dispute headed to arbitration. When I arrived, the parties were filing their final submissions and the arbitration hearing was scheduled just a few weeks after my first day in Frankfurt. The dispute was a complicated one, as cross-border commercial disputes often are, and I was swimming through information. It was exciting, but not as exciting as observing my first hearing in person. While it was an international, cross-border arbitration, the applicable law was German, most of the lawyers were German-qualified, and the arbitrator was a German lawyer. Unlike American courts, where the parties face the judge, the parties here faced each other. Unlike American courts, where the witness faces the parties and the jury, witnesses here sat in between the parties and faced the arbitral panel. Unlike American trial court proceedings, where judges usually limit their questions to clarifications, the arbitral panel here had multiple substantive questions that they could ask the witnesses. To be sure, I spent most of the hearing just watching. Watching the witnesses, the lawyers, the panel. It was all just different from my own experience in court. The mock trial kid and wannabe litigator in me kept lurching forward at different points to object to hearsay, speculation, and other things. Of course, the Federal Rules of Evidence don’t apply here. And, in all fairness, thank goodness. After the day and a half of hearings concluded, we returned to Cologne.
Pretty soon, the streets became populated with celebrants in colorful costumes and traditional uniforms, and visits to nearby breweries for pints of Kölsch were absolutely mandatory. The Thursday of Carnival, which is sort of the official beginning of the holiday, I was instructed not to wear a necktie lest a female colleague or perhaps a random stranger cut it off below the knot. I was also instructed that my innocent attempt at joining in the celebrations linguistically, by which I mean I wished a colleague “Guten Karneval,” was horribly wrong. The proper greeting was “Kölle Alaaf,” roughly translating to “Cologne above all.” The city was essentially on holiday until the next week. Parades began on that following Sunday, in which one of my friends participated. As a former marching band kid, I’m not sure I have ever seen such colorful and vivacious parades. The celebratory weekend peaks with Rose Monday (Rosenmontag). For not the first time in my life, I missed this main celebration in order to travel to New Delhi for a wedding. Yes, I was going directly from a German festival weekend to an Indian nuptial weekend. I returned over a week later and put myself on bed rest. Well, I intended to. My time in Cologne was quickly coming to an end and I had a few things on my list to do before I moved to Berlin.
“Moving to Berlin?” a friend from home asked, insinuating that the term “moving” was not appropriate. Relocating? Geographically displacing myself? As lawyers in training, words matter. But there’s no need to make things unnecessarily complicated. My move to Berlin came at a perfect time. BODENHEIMER’s Cologne office was packing up and getting ready to set up a new office. The Berlin office, on the other hand, had been packed up and its new space was almost ready. After a couple of days getting settled into my accommodations for the remainder of the semester, which I was subletting from a friend of a friend, the new Berlin office was ready. After a few stops on the S-Bahn (light rail) to the Warschauer Straße station and an incredibly short walk to the banks of the Spree River, I arrived at BODENHEIMER’s new Berlin home. The newly renovated office smelled like it – fresh paint, new floors, and cardboard boxes full of equipment and files. I have to admit I found it poetic and just plain cool to begin this next chapter alongside the firm’s new chapter.
Over the remaining weeks in Berlin, my work continued. I supported the submission of a statement of claim for another transnational contractual dispute, conducted various research tasks, and assisted with contract drafting for our clients. At the same time, I was reconnecting with my friends in Berlin who I had met in the course of my previous travels and made new connections through them and my three flatmates, all of whom were incredibly gracious, kind, and patient. While I had settled into a routine and fallen in love with Cologne, I felt like I was settling into Berlin. After a quick trip to Dublin with a classmate and then a short sojourn to London to align with my mother’s theatre trip to the West End, landing back at the Berlin Airport brought the strangest feeling. For much of my life, landing at Hartsfield-Jackson felt like coming “home.” After college, for several years landing at San Francisco International began to feel like “home.” After just a few weeks, landing back in Berlin started to give me that same feeling.
As my time in Germany and at BODENHEIMER came to an end, the weather began defrosting (did I mention I spent most of my semester in the thirties and forties?). Flowers all along the Spree began to bloom, and I unofficially declared our first team lunch outside alongside one of the canals a proper occasion, where we all ordered Weißer Spargel mit Schnitzel (white asparagus with schnitzel). Poetically, the arbitral panel I had observed a few months before in Frankfurt delivered its award. This award, combined with my prior work on that same arbitration, my support in submitting another claim, and a project involving a pre-litigation contract dispute, represented a personal and professional milestone: I had seen the bulk of an arbitral lifecycle. Just in time for me to return home.
On my last weekend in Berlin, my flatmate celebrated his birthday with a friend’s picnic along the Spree across from Schloss Bellevue, the German President’s ceremonial residence. With the soft sunshine, gentle breeze, lofi beats, good snacks and drinks, surrounded by new friends, I realized that I had accomplished everything I wanted to on this journey. I had witnessed firsthand a new legal system, gotten my hands dirty in the nitty-gritty of international arbitration, explored new cities, reconnected with old friends, made new lifelong peers, and above all else, I enjoyed every moment. It is not lost on me, however, that none of this would have been possible without help. My flatmates and friends I made in Germany, my colleagues and mentors at BODENHEIMER, The Halle Foundation, the Dean Rusk International Center, my Georgia Law professors, and my friends and family back home made this semester possible. As I look forward to the rest of my career and the rest of my life, I know that they each made whatever future steps come next possible as well. And for that, I will forever be grateful and forever indebted.
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For more information about semester-long Global Externships Overseas, please email: ruskintlaw@uga.edu
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