Delighted to report that the just-released U.S. News rankings place our international law curriculum here at the University of Georgia School of Law at No. 15 in the United States.

This excellence rating caps a decade in which our international law initiatives have ranked in the top 20 or so among US law schools. In this year’s rankings, our international law curriculum tied with UCLA Law for the No. 15 spot. (The University of Georgia School of Law, as a whole, earned a No. 20 ranking this year, as it posted here.)

Our international law achievement is due in no small part to the enthusiastic support and hard work of everyone affiliated with Georgia Law’s four-decades-old-old Dean Rusk International Law Center. As chronicled at this Exchange of Notes blog and our Center website, these include:

► Superb members of the law faculty, including: Dean Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge, an international arbitration expert; our Center’s Director, Melissa J. “MJ” Durkee, whose expertise includes international business law, international environmental law, and space law; the Center’s Faculty Co-Directors, Professors Diane Marie Amann, an expert in peace-and-security fields including the laws of war, child rights, and international criminal justice, and Harlan G. Cohen, an expert in global governance, trade, and foreign relations law. Among those supporting their efforts are many other Georgia Law faculty and courtesy faculty members, including: Professors Zohra Ahmed, whose interests include law and political economy; Christopher M. Bruner, a comparative corporate governance scholar; Thomas Burch, who leads the Appellate Clinic that has won clients relief under the Convention Against Torture; Anne Burnett, foreign and international law research librarian; Jason Cade and Clare Norins, who recently led a clinical team in securing federal redress for immigration detainees; Nathan S. Chapman, a scholar of due process and extraterritoriality; Jessica L. Heywood, Director of the Washington, D.C. Semester in Practice; Thomas E. Kadri, whose expertise includes cybercrime and global data privacy; Fazal Khan and Elizabeth Weeks, health law specialists; Jonathan Peters, a journalism and law professor expert in international media and free speech; Laura Phillips-Sawyer; Kalyani Ramnath, a global legal historian who focuses on South Asia; Lori A. Ringhand, a scholar of comparative constitutional law and elections law; Tim Samples, whose scholarship includes global digital platforms agreements; Kent Barnett, Sonja West, and Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, who have presented overseas on administrative law, media law, and civil procedure, respectively; Walter Hellerstein, a world-renowned tax specialist; Michael L. Wells, a European Union scholar; and Anna Howard White, who led our champion Jessup International Moot Court Team.

► Talented students pursuing JD, MSL, and LLM degrees, as well as Graduate Certificates in International Law. They include: our Center’s many Student Ambassadors; the staffers and editors of the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law who produce one of the country’s oldest student journals, and who led our October 2022 conference, “The Law of Global Economic Statecraft”; the advocates on the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court, the LL.M.s’ International Commercial & Investment Arbitration Moot Competition, and the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot; student clinicians in our Appellate Litigation Clinic who have argued asylum cases before U.S. Courts of Appeals, as well as those in our Community HeLP Clinic, Jane W. Wilson Family Justice Clinic, and First Amendment Clinic who have litigated claims for detainees and other immigration clients; participants in our Global Externships as well as our full-semester NATO Externship and other D.C. Semester in Practice placements; and the student leaders of our International Law Society.

► Superb Center staff like Laura Tate Kagel, Sarah Quinn, Mandy Dixon, and Catrina Martin.

► Visiting Scholars and Researchers, including, most recently, Professor Brianne McGonigle Leyh and Maisie Hopkins from the Netherlands’ Utrecht University, Daesun Kim, a comparative administrative law researcher; and Professor Natalia Pires de Vasconcelos, Insper São Paulo, Brazil.

► Academics, practitioners, and policymakers, from all over the world, who have contributed to our events – conferences, workshops, and lectures, including our ongoing Consular Series and International Law Colloquium, as well as this past semester’s Space Law Speaker Series, part of a minicourse that culminated in a daylong problem-solving exercise.

► Graduates who excel as partners in international commercial law firms, as heads of nongovernmental organizations and international organizations, as in-house counsel at leading multinational enterprises, and as diplomats and public servants – and who give back through participation in our Dean Rusk International Law Center Council, through mentoring, and through other support.

► Our valued partnerships, with Georgia Law student organizations; with leading higher education institutions such as the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies in Belgium, our partner in our Global Governance Summer School,  as well as O.P. Jindal University in India and Bar Ilan University in Israel, with which we have student and faculty exchanges; with organizations like the American Branch of the International Law Association, the American Society of International Law, and the European Society of International Law, in which our faculty have held leadership roles, as well as Global Atlanta, the World Affairs Council of Atlanta, the Atlanta International Arbitration Society; and with university units like the School of Public & International Affairs, the Terry College of Business, the Grady School of Journalism, the African Studies Institute, and the Willson Center for Humanities & Arts.

With thanks to all, we look forward to continue strengthening our initiatives in international, comparative, transnational, and foreign relations law – not least, in the preparation of Georgia Law students to practice in our 21st C. globalized legal profession.