Recent Highlights

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  Law school deans from around the world discuss globalizing law education (video)

  Deans representing law schools in China, Brazil, Canada, and France gathered at Harvard Law School on Friday to discuss the pressures facing law schools to reform curricula in response to globalization.

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  HLS and Stanford Law host fourth annual International Junior Faculty Forum

  Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School co-hosted the fourth annual Harvard-Stanford International Junior Faculty Forum (IJFF) in November, bringing 11 of the world’s most innovative junior legal scholars from around the world to present their work. This year’s forum was held at HLS.

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  Professor Duncan Kennedy receives honorary degree from Sciences Po (video)

  Harvard Law School Professor Duncan Kennedy, whose scholarship has focused on juridical thought, economic analysis of the law, the links between law and literary theory, and legal globalization, has become the first law professor to receive an honorary doctorate from Sciences Po in Paris.

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  Alford meets with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

  HLS Professor William Alford ’77, a member of the executive committee of the board of directors of Special Olympics International and chair of its research and policy committee, met with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in November to discuss disability issues. Alford was a participant in the meeting at the invitation of Timothy Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, and Na Kyung-won, a member of the South Korean Congress who has been at the forefront of disability rights legislation.

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  Garzon on universal jurisdiction in the international criminal arena (video)

  Universal Jurisdiction, the universal right to prosecute a perpetrator of heinous crimes anywhere in the world despite local amnesty laws, was the topic of discussion at Harvard Law School on September 26. In a talk hosted by the Human Rights Program, Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon spoke about universal jurisdiction in today’s international criminal arena.

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  Wilkins on Globalization, Lawyers and Emerging Economies

  In September, Harvard Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession, under the direction of HLS Professor David Wilkins ‘80, launched a major new research initiative in India called “Globalization, Lawyers and Emerging Economies,” or “GLEE.” As part of the launch, the program hosted a conference, “The Indian Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization,” in New Delhi, India, on Sept. 10, which brought together 150 leading lawyers, academics, judges and policy makers to discuss the future of legal education and the future of legal practice.

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  Harvard Gazette: How they spent summer

  When an opportunity arose this summer to work in Afghanistan on issues of human rights, Nicolette Boehland jumped at the chance. Little did the second-year Harvard Law School student know that she would soon be crisscrossing the country in Black Hawk helicopters interviewing victims of torture.

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  Legal scholars examine Franco-American legal influence

  The American and French legal systems share a common origin, each arising from 18th-century movements aspiring to create democratic government. But both nations have taken largely different approaches to the development of their legal systems. On June 13, a panel of American and French legal scholars gathered at Harvard Law School for a conference, "Franco-American Legal Influence, Then and Now," to examine the similarities and dissimilarities between French and American legal institutions and jurisprudence.

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  Students spearhead constitutional reform project for Bahrain

  This winter, as protests erupted throughout the Middle East, Harvard Law School student Jason Gelbort ’12 was one of the many obsessively watching the news, wondering if there was anything he could do to help. Then, on March 2, he went to a talk by Chibli Mallat, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Visiting Professor of Islamic Legal Studies at HLS. Mallat mentioned that he wanted to undertake a project on constitutional reform in Bahrain, and Gelbort volunteered to help Mallat conceptualize and organize the project.

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  A leading intellectual offers strategic advice on Europe's competitiveness in the global era

  In 1981, a young Frenchman attended Harvard Law School’s graduate program. Like many alumni, after he received his LL.M. degree, he worked for a firm in the States. When he went back to France, Laurent Cohen-Tanugi LL.M. ’82 became an associate at the Paris office of the firm, but he also published an elegant comparative analysis of the French and American legal and democratic traditions. The book, “Le droit sans l’État” (“Law without the State”), which was called “Tocquevillian,” influenced the transformation of the French idea of democracy and the legal profession, and it launched the 27-year-old’s career in France as a writer and intellectual.

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  In their own words: Chayes fellows share stories of experiences abroad (audio)

  This fall, more than 20 recipients of the 2010 Chayes International Public Service Fellowship gathered at the home of Antonia Chayes, widow of HLS Professor Abram Chayes '49, to share stories of their fellowship experience. Founded in memory of Chayes, the Fellowships allow HLS students to spend eight weeks working with governments of developing nations and those making difficult transitions to peace, stability, and democracy, and with inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations that support them. 

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  Sachs and Kennedy debate “Stones of Hope” and the relationship between poverty and development (video)

  On Nov. 19, Harvard Law School  Professor Duncan Kennedy and Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University professor and special adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General, discussed a new collection edited by HLS Professor Lucie White ’81 and Jeremy Perelman, S.J.D. ’11, before a large audience at HLS. That collection—“Stones of Hope: How African Activists Reclaim Human Rights to Challenge Global Poverty”—combines case studies from activists with theoretical essays on development to “tackle problems of disenfranchisement and poverty in the world,” said HLS Professor William Alford ’77, vice dean for the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies, who introduced the discussion of the book.

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  Professors discuss study of international law at HLS

  In a recent panel discussion at Harvard Law School, professors William Alford, Grainne de Burca, and Gerald Neuman extolled the benefits of studying, interning, and working abroad in a legal context, and offered practical advice to internationally-minded students about how to get started.

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  Endicott looks at the territorial extent of human rights

  In early September, Timothy Endicott, dean of the faculty of law at Oxford University and a professor of legal philosophy, spoke to an overflow audience in Pound Hall on how judges in Europe and the United States have ruled on the territorial extent of human rights.  

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  Neuman elected to the Human Rights Committee

  Harvard Law School Professor Gerald Neuman ’80 has been elected to the Human Rights Committee, the premier treaty body in the UN human rights system. The committee monitors compliance by 166 states parties with their obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is part of the “International Bill of Rights.”

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.