Georgia

Georgia Law LL.M. student Samuel Kuo admitted as a Fellow to the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators

University of Georgia School of Law Master of Laws (LL.M.) student Samuel Kuo was recently admitted as a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb).

Fellowship is the highest level of membership in the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb), and as a Fellow, Kuo is now part of a distinguished group of experienced dispute resolution practitioners and eligible to join the CIArb’s, and other arbitral institutions’, dispute panels of neutrals. CIArb is a global professional organization with over 15,000 members worldwide that represents the interests of alternative dispute resolution practitioners. The headquarters are located in London and the institute was founded in 1915. Its North America Branch has over 400 members and the closest chapter to the University of Georgia geographically is Atlanta.

Kuo, who is from Taiwan and the United Kingdom, received his bachelor of laws degree with upper second class honors from the University of York in the United Kingdom. During his law studies he held a variety of editorial positions and served in leadership positions, including international societies representative, secretary of the University of York International Students’ Association and mock parliament leader. In addition to completing several legal internships, he worked in the marketing department at Gunnercooke LLP in Manchester, England. Kuo serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues (JLERI) and is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (MCIArb) and received a Michael Mustill Scholar of Gray’s Inn and the International Dispute Resolution Centre scholarship to undertake further study in international arbitration. Prior to his LL.M. studies, Mr. Kuo served as a moot arbitrator at the 31st Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot and the 21st Vis East Moot as well as several pre-moots.

The Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree at Georgia Law offers foreign law graduates opportunities to learn about the U.S. legal system, deepen knowledge of an area of specialization, and explore new legal interests. To learn more and to apply, visit our website.

Georgia Law Professor Desirée LeClercq testifies before the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, DC

University of Georgia School of Law Professor Desirée LeClercq testified before the United States International Trade Commission hearing on the United States Mexico Agreement (USMCA) Automotive Rules of Origin: Economic Impact and Operation, 2025 Report earlier this month.

During this hearing, LeClercq presented her empirical study examining the effects of the USMCA Rapid Response Mechanism on workers in the Mexican auto sector. Current 3L Gloria Maria Correa assisted LeClercq in researching for this report. The abstract from the pre-hearing brief is as follows:

This pre-hearing brief is a submission to the U.S. International Trade Commission in relation to its investigation on the USMCA Automotive Rules of Origin: Economic Impact and Operation, 2025 Report. This investigation is a useful exercise and an opportunity to provide information about a recent study, entitled “Enforcement of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (“USMCA”) Rapid Response Mechanism: Views from Mexican Auto Sector Workers,” conducted at Cornell University to help inform the Commission’s assessment. This study explores whether efforts under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) Facility-Specific Labor Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) are leveling the playing field between U.S. and Mexican auto facilities by strengthening the labor rights of workers in the Mexican auto sector.

Desirée 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.

Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann discusses child-taking at annual forum International Nuremberg Principles Academy in Germany

University of Georgia School of Law Professor Diane Marie Amann spoke at last week’s Nuremberg Forum 2024, the annual three-day meeting of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy. It was held in the Nuremberg, Germany, courtroom where hundreds of Nazi defendants were tried in the wake of World War II.

The theme of this year’s Forum was “For Every Child: Protecting Children’s Rights in Armed Conflict.” Amann spoke on the closing panel, “Ways Forward: Protecting Future Generations,” pictured above. She is pictured at right along with, l to r: Kristin Hausler; Betty Kaari Murungi; moderator Angar Verma; and Leila Zerrougui.

Amann gave an overview of her new article “Child-Taking,” 45 Michigan Journal of International Law 305 (2024), with focus on forced residential schooling of Indigenous children. As theorized in the article available here, child-taking occurs when a state or similar powerful entity takes a child and then endeavors to alter, erase, or remake the child’s identity. Though a criminal phenomenon, it may be redressed not only in criminal justice systems, but also through transitional justice mechanisms.

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. She served from 2012 to 2021 as International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s Special Adviser on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict. This fall, she is spending a research-intensive semester in the United Kingdom, where she is a Research Visitor at the Oxford Faculty of Law Bonavero Institute of Human Rights.

Georgia Law Professor Kannan Rajarathinam (LL.M. ’88) interviewed by Hindustan Times

University of Georgia School of Law alumnus and adjunct professor Kannan Rajarathinam (LL.M. ’88) was interviewed in Hindustan Times about his new book, The DMK Years: Ascent, Descent, Survival (India Viking, 2024). The book will be available for purchase on November 15, 2024 in the United States.

The article titled “Unclear if the DMK is still the party of the modest or is for the modest” was written by Divya Chandrababu and was published on September 20.

Below is the introduction to the interview:

Political commentator and author R. Kannan recently launched his book, ‘The DMK Years: Ascent, Descent, Survival’ which is [an] account of the DMK’s journey, from its foundation in 1949 by CN Annadurai to its present-day prominence under Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin. In an interview with Hindustan Times, the author speaks on the DMK’s 75th founding day and the Hindu assertion of the BJP that has forced the DMK to hold a conference for Murugan, the Hindu deity. Chief Minister Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi’s real test is a post-Stalin-phase, he says, adding that DMK’s strength is in its [organizational] base and a divided opposition, but if actor Vijay were to join forces with AIADMK or others, the ruling party might be in trouble for the 2026 assembly polls. 

The University of Georgia School of Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center is hosting a book talk on Tuesday, November 19th for Rajarathinam. The conversation will be co-facilitated by Professor Laura Phillips-Sawyer of Georgia Law and Dr. Laura Zimmermann of the School of Public and International Affairs. This event is part of International Education Week, a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education, an effort to promote programs that prepare Americans for a global environment and celebrate the benefits of international education.

Kannan Rajarathinam is an adjunct professor at the University of Georgia School of Law teaching a course on International Organizations. Between 1993 and 2022, he served the United Nations in various capacities, including senior political affairs officer, head of office, senior planning and coordination officer, chief civil affairs officer, and legal officer from Afghanistan to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Before joining the UN, he briefly taught at the University of Madras in India as a guest faculty member and junior professor and practiced law. Presently, he serves on the Dean Rusk International Law Center Advisory Council.

Georgia Law Professor Adam Orford presents at World Congress of Environmental History in Finland

University of Georgia School of Law professor Adam D. Orford recently presented his article “The Oil Pollution Act of 1924: A Centennial Reassessment” and spoke on the panel “Law, History, and the Environment” at the World Congress of Environmental History, hosted at the University of Oulu in Finland. The theme for this year’s conference was “Transitions, Transformations and Transdisciplinarity: Histories Beyond History.”

Below is the paper’s abstract:

This Article examines the social, political, and legislative history of the United States Oil Pollution Act of 1924. A century after its enactment, the nation’s first federal antipollution law remains undeservedly obscure. At the height of the conservative Lochner era, during the conservative Coolidge Administration, with conservative majorities in both houses of Congress, and in the face of opposition from the oil and marine shipping industries, the United States Congress enacted a national law prohibiting oil pollution. How did this happen? Who was involved? And what can be learned about today’s conservative legal and political environment?

This work is part of a larger project to synthesize histories of political conservatism and national environmental legislation in the U.S. prior to the 1970s. The author’s prior work has traced this development back to through the postwar years. This work extends the inquiry further, examining U.S. federal antipollution legislation within the context of the social and political environment of the post-progressive 1920s, with attention to the role of private associations and business interests in promoting the legislation, and of technological feasibility in ultimately securing passage while also limiting the law’s scope.

There has not been a major study of this law since the 1980s, providing an excellent opportunity to integrate new historical perspectives – including environmental history and the recognition of political conservatism as an important historical force – as well as newly available archival records.

Orford is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. His interdisciplinary research investigates legal and policy approaches to environmental protection, human health and wellbeing, and deep decarbonization of the United States economy. He also participates in collaborative research initiatives across UGA, including as the lead of the Georgia element of the National Zoning Atlas and as a participant in ongoing investigations into the legal, political, environmental and social dimensions of new energy manufacturing and emerging carbon removal technologies.

Nomsa Ndongwe, Research Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, speaks at Georgia Law

James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) Research Fellow Nomsa Ndongwe spoke to students about careers in international law and contemporary security challenges this week at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Ndongwe discussed her own career trajectory and current work in nonproliferation at CNS. She identified several skills aspiring international lawyers can work towards in law school, including learning languages and developing subject matter expertise. Ndongwe championed the importance of professional networking, building relationships with peers, and making use of the resources available to students at Georgia Law, like the Career Development Office and the Dean Rusk International Law Center. She also answered student questions about the use of artificial intelligence in international law, current proceedings in international courts, and global nuclear security challenges.

Ndongwe is a Co-founder of the WCAPS West Coast Chapter, and an N-Square Innovators Network Fellow 2020 – 2021. As of January 2022, she co-leads the CNS Young Women in Nonproliferation Initiative, is a School of International Futures Mentor 2023, and served as a Girl Security mentor. She is also a part of the P5 –Young Professionals Network (YPN) 2022-2023 cohort. She has a Master of Arts in Nonproliferation, Terrorism Studies, and Financial Crime Management from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. She obtained her first degree, an LLB Single (Hons) degree at Brunel University, and her Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice (LPC) from the University of Law in Guildford, UK.

Previously, she served as diplomat for the Zimbabwe Permanent Mission to the United Nations Office at Geneva, focusing mainly on the Disarmament portfolio and International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Nomsa is a featured non-proliferation panelist/moderator for the Ploughshares Foundation, Harvard Belfer Center, Trinity College DC, United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) New York, Naval Postgraduate School, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), N Square Innovators Network and Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann publishes “Child-Taking” in Michigan Journal of International Law

“Child-Taking,” an article by University of Georgia School of Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, has just been published at 45 Michigan Journal of International Law 305-79 (2024).

As theorized in the article, “child-taking” occurs when a state or similar powerful entity takes a child and then endeavors to alter, erase, or remake the child’s identity. It is a criminal phenomenon that has been repeated across decades and centuries. On rare occasion, criminal prosecutions have occurred, as with the Situation in Ukraine before the International Criminal Court. More often redress, if any, must take place in other forums. The article thus considers these other types of transitional justice, with particular attention to the legacies of forced residential schooling imposed upon Indigenous children in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere.

Amann presented aspects of this research at numerous venues, including King’s College London, Yale University, the University of Cambridge, University College London, and the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting.

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. She served from 2012 to 2021 as International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s Special Adviser on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict.

Here’s the abstract of the “Child-Taking” article, the print version of which is available here:

A ruling group at times takes certain children out of their community and then tries to remake them in its image. It tries to rid the child of undesired differences, in ethnicity or nationality, religion or politics, race or ancestry, culture or class. There are too many examples: the colonialist residential schools that forced settler cultures on Indigenous children; the military juntas that kidnapped dissidents’ children; and today’s reports of abductions amid crises like that in Syria. Too often nothing is done, and the children are lost. But that may be changing, as the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) is seeking to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for the war crimes of unlawfully deporting or transferring children from Ukraine to Russia.

“This article examines the criminal phenomenon that it names ‘child-taking.’ By its definition, the crime occurs when a state or similar powerful entity, first, takes a child, and second, endeavors, whether successfully or not, to alter, erase, or remake the child’s identity. Using the ICC case as a springboard, this article relies on historical and legal events to produce an original account of child-taking. Newly available trial transcripts help bring to life a bereft mother and five teenaged survivors, plus the lone woman defendant, who testified at a little-known child-kidnapping trial before a postwar Nuremberg tribunal. Their stories, viewed in the context of the evolution of international child law, inform this article’s definition. These sources further reveal child-taking to be what the law calls a matter of international concern. At its most serious, child-taking may constitute genocide or another crime within the ICC’s jurisdiction. Yet even if circumstances preclude punishment in that permanent criminal court, child-taking remains a grave offense warranting prosecution or other forms of local and global transitional justice. This is as true for the Indigenous children of residential schools in North America, Australia, and elsewhere, and for children in Syria and many other places in the world, as it is for the children of Ukraine.

Georgia Law Professor Assaf Harpaz publishes article on the U.N. Framework Tax Convention

University of Georgia School of Law assistant professor Assaf Harpaz published an article titled “The U.N. Framework Tax Convention: Can It Bridge the North-South Divide?” in the tax publication Tax Notes International.

In this article, Harpaz explains the key issues being addressed in the U.N. framework convention on international tax cooperation, including the global north-south divide and its role in the multilateral process.

The article’s abstract is as follows:

The United Nations recently concluded the second session of negotiations on terms of reference for a framework convention on international tax cooperation. The framework convention presents an opportunity to multilaterally address pressing global tax issues. Its goal is to “strengthen international tax cooperation and make it fully inclusive and more effective.”

The extensively negotiated terms of reference make several substantive commitments, including the fair allocation of taxing rights; tax evasion and avoidance by high-net worth individuals; sustainable development; mutual administrative assistance in tax matters; tax-related illicit financial flows; and prevention and resolution of tax disputes.

The ongoing multilateral effort brings the promise of a more equitable international tax regime. However, support for the U.N.’s work and the substantive issues identified has been sharply divided along global north-south lines. A successful U.N. process will need to acquire legitimacy from both the developed superpowers and the developing countries that have historically been excluded from international tax policymaking decisions.

The article explains the key issues being addressed in the U.N. framework convention on international tax cooperation, including the global north-south divide and its role in the multilateral process.

Assaf Harpaz joined University of Georgia School of Law as an assistant professor in summer 2024 and will teach 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.

Georgia Law Professor Jason Cade cited by U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 

University of Georgia School of Law Associate Dean & Hosch Professor Jason A. Cade’s article “Deporting the Pardoned” was recently cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case Lopez v. Garland.

Below is an excerpt from the article:

Federal immigration laws make noncitizens deportable on the basis of state criminal convictions. Historically, Congress implemented this scheme in ways that respected the states’ sovereignty over their criminal laws. As more recent federal laws have been interpreted, however, a state’s decision to pardon, expunge, or otherwise set aside a conviction under state law will often have no effect on the federal government’s determination to use that conviction as a basis for deportation. While scholars have shown significant interest in state and local laws regulating immigrants, few have considered the federalism implications of federal rules that ignore a state’s authority to determine the continuing validity of its own convictions. This Article contends that limitations on the preclusive effect of pardons, expungements, appeals, and similar post-conviction processes undermine sovereign interests in maintaining the integrity of the criminal justice system, calibrating justice, fostering rehabilitation, and deciding where to allocate resources. In light of the interests at stake, Congress should be required to clearly express its intent to override pardons and related state post-conviction procedures. A federalism-based clear statement rule for statutory provisions that restrict generally applicable criminal processes would not constrain the federal government’s power to set immigration policy. Congress remains free to make its intent clear in the statute. But the rule would ensure that Congress, rather than an administrative agency, has made the deliberative choice to upset the usual constitutional balance of federal and state power.

Jason A. Cade is Associate Dean for Clinical Programs and Experiential Learning, J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law & Community Health Law Partnership Clinic Director. In addition to overseeing the law school’s 11 in-house clinics and 7 externship programs, Cade teaches immigration law courses and directs the school’s Community Health Law Partnership Clinic (Community HeLP), in which law students undertake an interdisciplinary approach to immigrants’ rights through individual client representation, litigation, and project-based advocacy before administrative agencies and federal courts.

Additional information about the Community HeLP Clinic can be found here.

Georgia Law Professor Desirée LeClercq presents at 2nd annual Trade and Public Policy Network Conference in Oxford

University of Georgia Assistant Professor of Law & Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, Desirée LeClercq, presented at the 2nd annual Trade and Public Policy Network Conference in Oxford, England. LeClercq’s work was entitled: “Enforcement of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement Rapid Response Mechanism.”

Desirée LeClercq joined the University of Georgia School of Law as an assistant professor in summer 2024 and currently teaches International Trade and Workers Rights, International Labor Law, International Law, and U.S. Labor Law. She 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.