Jeannie Suk ’02
Suk gains tenure as a professor of law at Harvard
Jeannie Suk ’02 has gained tenure as a professor of law at Harvard. She is the first tenured Asian-American woman at the law school.
Suk—whose research interests are criminal law and procedure, family law, art law and entertainment law—joined the law school faculty as an assistant professor in 2006. She currently teaches courses on criminal law and on performing arts and the law.
“Jeannie Suk’s imaginative, probing, and sometimes provocative scholarship builds bridges between criminal and family law, between law and the humanities, and between theory and practice,” said HLS Dean Martha Minow. “Her superb teaching and intellectual leadership model the life of the mind, and I know her colleagues and students are thrilled to celebrate the recognition of her accomplishments signified by her promotion.”
Suk is author of two books, “Postcolonial Paradoxes in French Caribbean Writing” (Oxford University Press, 2001) and “At Home in the Law: How the Domestic Violence Revolution Is Transforming Privacy” (Yale University Press, 2009). Her book “At Home in the Law,” which examines how legal feminism is transforming privacy in the home through the regulation of domestic violence, won the Herbert Jacob Book Prize from the Law and Society Association this year.
In 2009, Suk was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to research the legal construction of trauma and was the inaugural Senior Fellow of the Humanities Center at Harvard. Her third book, “The Trauma Society,” is forthcoming.
Last year, Suk co-wrote a highly influential article in the Stanford Law Review (vol. 61, issue 5, March 2009) arguing that American fashion designers should have their designs protected by law against close copies.
Suk—who immigrated to the United States from Seoul, South Korea, as a child—received her bachelor’s degree in literature from Yale University. She earned her doctoral degree from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar and went on to attend Harvard Law School on a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship. She has served as a law clerk to Justice David Souter ’66 on the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge Harry T. Edwards on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Giannini appointed clinical professor of law
Tyler Giannini
Tyler Giannini has been appointed a clinical professor at Harvard Law School. He was formerly a lecturer on law at HLS.
Giannini—who teaches in the fields of business and human rights and on Alien Tort Statute litigation, as well as on the link between human rights and the environment—is also clinical director of HLS’s Human Rights Program. He is a specialist on Burma, Southeast Asia, and South Africa. He joined HLS as a clinical advocacy fellow in the HRP in 2004, was appointed as a lecturer on law in 2006 and became director of the International Human Rights Clinic in 2007.
Giannini’s theories of tort liability have played a significant role in holding corporations responsible for the human rights ramifications of their enterprise activities. As one of the architects of the Doe v. Unocal litigation concerning the Yadana gas pipeline in Burma, he helped develop the concept of corporate ATS litigation, one of the most important vehicles for modern international human rights law reform.
“Tyler Giannini is a creative thinker and pioneer in the development of theories of liability in the field of human rights,” said HLS Dean Martha Minow. “His work has guided IHRC and our clinical students in ground-breaking and influential work in human rights advocacy. He was already a key member of our community, and I am delighted that Tyler joins our permanent faculty.”
Giannini wrote “Prosecuting Apartheid-Era Crimes? A South African Dialogue on Justice” (Harvard University Press, 2009), with Susan Farbstein ’04.
Prior to joining Harvard Law School, he co-founded and co-directed EarthRights International for a decade in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Giannini is a 1992 cum laude graduate of the College of William and Mary, where he majored in history and government with an emphasis on international relations. He holds a Master of Arts in foreign affairs and a law degree from the University of Virginia.