Recent Highlights

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  Going Global: Harvard Law students travel the world in search of new perspectives

  For Harvard Law School students seeking a truly global experience, the expanding Semester Abroad Program gives them the opportunity to immerse themselves in a foreign legal culture. This year, HLS sent students to six nations: the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Israel, Chile, South Africa, and England. Here, three students talk about why they chose to study abroad, and what their very diverse experiences were like.

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  Mark Wu, expert in international trade and intellectual property law, to join HLS faculty

  Mark Wu will join the Harvard Law School faculty in July, Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow announced today. With broad-ranging experience in international intellectual property and trade, his academic interests include international trade, international law, intellectual property law, and Chinese law.

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  Grainne de Burca, noted scholar in EU law and transnational governance, will join HLS faculty

  Grainne de Burca, a leading expert in European Union law, European human rights law, and European and transnational governance, will join the Harvard Law School faculty as a tenured professor of law on July 1.

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  Seminar explores policies of the ICC’s first prosecutor

  This January, in a seminar taught by Dean Martha Minow and Associate Clinical Professor Alex Whiting, 15 students at Harvard Law School discussed the policies and strategies of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court—with the man most directly connected to those policies, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC’S first prosecutor.

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  Former South African Justice Albie Sachs looks back at the strange alchemy of life and law

  He survived repeat imprisonment, a car bombing that resulted in the loss of his arm, and vision in one eye, but through it all, Albie Sachs counts himself lucky to have played a pivotal role in his country’s history.

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  Diego Faleck LL.M. ’06 discusses success of alternative dispute resolution of claims stemming from 2007 plane crash in Brazil

  In a letter that appeared in the Summer 2009 Harvard Law Bulletin, ”Letter from São Paulo,” Diego Faleck LL.M. ’06 discusses a new system of compensation that took place in Brazil after the crash of TAM airlines Flight 3054 on July 17, 2007.

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  Panelists survey the breadth and depth of International Legal Studies

  On April 24, HLS hosted a panel discussion titled “The International Face of Harvard Law School.” The panel, moderated by Professor William Alford ’77, included John F. Cogan, Jr. ’52 and four current HLS students who described their experiences in the international law program at HLS.

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  HLS Activists Laud Weapons Treaty

  Humanitarian activists from around the world celebrated in Oslo, Norway, after the signing of a treaty banning cluster munitions, arguably one of the most important weapons accords in recent memory. Ninety-four countries signed the treaty and four have already ratified it.

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  Conference examines impact of globalization on the legal profession

  Hundreds of American law firms have expanded their operations overseas in the last 20 years to meet the needs of clients in an increasingly global economy.

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  Goldsmith, Posner: Europe’s commitment to international law is ‘largely rhetorical’

  HLS Professor Jack Goldsmith and University of Chicago Law Professor Eric Posner ‘91 wrote “Does Europe Believe in International Law?” an op-ed published in the Nov. 25, 2008, edition of The Wall Street Journal.

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  Pakistan’s ousted Chief Justice accepts HLS Medal of Freedom

  The deposed Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhry, accepted the Harvard Law School Medal of Freedom in a November 19 ceremony at HLS.

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  HLS and Stanford Law host international junior faculty forum

  Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School jointly hosted the inaugural Harvard-Stanford International Junior Faculty Forum on October 17 and 18. Held on the Stanford campus this year, the annual conference seeks to bring together leading younger scholars from throughout the world beyond the US.

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  Michelman, Goldstone lead exploration of South Africa’s Bill of Rights

  Just hours after embattled South African President Thabo Mbeki announced that he would resign on Sept. 21 students in a Harvard Law School classroom are absorbing the reverberations from a hemisphere away.

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  Exploring the Supreme Court’s role in foreign policy, Noah Feldman argues against unilateralism in the law

  In the seven years since 9/11, the question of how we relate to the rest of the world -- and how we should -- has inescapably made its way to the Supreme Court, as the United States has tried to balance the benefits of multilateral alliances with the demands of unilateral self-protection, observes Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman.

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  Needed: A Regional Approach to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

  Assistant Professor Gabriella Blum LL.M. ’01 S.J.D. ’03 is an international law scholar who was involved in Israeli-Arab peace negotiations and later advised the Israel Defense Forces on counterterrorism operations, and the Israeli national security adviser on the planning and execution of the Israeli disengagement from Gaza and the northern West Bank. We asked Blum: As the next U.S. president faces the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, what should he aspire to?

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  Lawyers for the Damned

  For students and faculty in an HLS clinic, human rights and environmental law flow together.

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  HLS grad is elected president of Taiwan

  Running on a promise to improve relations with mainland China, former Taipei mayor and Harvard Law graduate Ma Ying-jeou S.J.D. '81 was elected president of Taiwan.

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  War Crimes Through the Looking Glass

  When the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor resumed in The Hague in January 2008, much of the world was watching. So were 11 Harvard Law students—from about 20 feet away.

Harvard Law School provides an astonishing array of opportunities to learn about and experience the world’s law. A student might take a class with a renowned South African jurist co-taught with an eminent American comparativist, organize a conference on international arbitration, spend a semester in Switzerland, conduct a winter term project in China, carry out cutting edge research on international human rights, or enter into what will be lifelong dialogue with classmates from more than 80 nations.