International
Academic Highlights
The Law School offers an unsurpassed array of courses, seminars and colloquia in international, comparative and foreign law. In fact, there are more than 40 courses typically taught in these areas each year, and International Law is now a first-year elective. Students develop cross-cutting expertise between areas that were traditionally studied separately, such as trade and environmental law, intellectual property and human rights, and global antitrust and international labor law. The study of international law at NYU is integrally linked to the Hauser Global Law School Program, which reflects and responds to the interconnections and influences of laws and legal systems of various nations among one another. The Hauser Global Program brings the Law School into partnership with leading law schools in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Singapore, China and Europe, and, with the Institute for International Law and Justice, has an active series of conferences on globalization and public regulatory issues with partners in Delhi, Cape Town, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Beijing and elsewhere.
Faculty study and teach international law from a wide range of perspectives:
Global Trade and Regulation: Professors Richard Stewart and Benedict Kingsbury initiated and direct the Institute for International Law and Justice’s Global Administrative Law Research Project—a revolutionary approach to responsibility and participation in global governance that involves scholars worldwide. Kingsbury also works on the issues of indigenous peoples, and directs the Program in the History and Theory of International Law as well as the Institute for International Law and Justice. Stewart directs the Hauser Global Law School Program and is doing groundbreaking work on climate change and on GMOs. Together with Professor Kevin Davis, Stewart and Kingsbury launched a project in 2009 on Climate Change Financing for Development, on governance, design and tax issues in global carbon markets.
University Professor Joseph Weiler examines global trade issues in courses such as International and Regional Trade Law: The Law of the WTO and NAFTA, and the Jean Monnet Seminar—International Economic Law and Justice: Advanced Issues in the Law and Policy of the E.U., NAFTA and the WTO. He also heads the Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law & Justice and runs the new Straus Institute for the Advanced Study of Law & Justice and the new Tikvah Center for Law & Jewish Civilization. Professor Robert Howse, a leading WTO expert, joined the Law School’s faculty in 2008, and teaches Trade, International Investment Law and International Financial Architecture.
Gráinne de Búrca, a leading expert on European Union law, focuses on a wide range of topics related to E.U. law and policy, including doctrine, institutional design, and broad questions about the integration of the E.U. legal order with the international legal system. She is co-editor of a book about the E.U. and the WTO.
International Human Rights is the focus of several professors’ teaching, research and activism. Professor Philip Alston is the former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions as well as the chair of the Law School’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. He teaches International Law, International Human Rights and Children’s Rights in International Law. His faculty codirectors, Professors Smita Narula and Margaret Satterthwaite '99, lead the International Human Rights Clinic and do cutting-edge research in this area.
This fall, Professor Sujit Choudhry, an internationally recognized authority on comparative constitutional law and comparative constitutional development, joined the Law School. He focuses particularly on Canada, South Africa, India, and the U.S.
United Nations and Security Issues are analyzed on several different fronts. The Institute for International Law and Justice integrates the Law School's scholarly excellence in international law into the policy activities of the U.N. Issues examined by the Institute have included the administrative tribunals and the U.N.; the role of the Security Council in strengthening a rules-based international system (jointly with the Permanent Mission of Austria to the U.N.); the role of the U.N. Secretary-General in World Politics, and state-building, governance and accountability in U.N. law. The Center on Law and Security codirectors, Professors Stephen Holmes and David Golove, lead a colloquium devoted to examining current security issues. Faculty members teaching in this area include Professors Richard Pildes, Samuel Issacharoff, Stephen Schulhofer, Burt Neuborne, Cristina Rodríguez (on Leave), and Samuel Rascoff, an Arabic-speaking Middle East expert who worked at high levels in government service before and after his U.S. Supreme Court clerkship.
Professor José Alvarez's scholarship encompasses the U.N. Security Council, international criminal tribunals, and international economic governance.
Private and Transactional International Law: NYU School of Law provides a rich academic environment for the study of private and transactional international law. Course offerings include Conflict of Laws, International Litigation and International Commercial Arbitration. Faculty practicing in the area include Professor Andreas Lowenfeld, a preeminent expert in the field of public and private international law; Professor Linda Silberman, one of the leading scholars and practitioners in the fields of civil procedure, conflict of laws, family law (domestic and international), international litigation and international arbitration; Professor Clayton Gillette, an expert in the international law of commercial sales and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the Sale of International Goods; and Professor Rochelle Dreyfuss, director of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy and a leader and innovator in the field of international intellectual property. Professor Kevin Davis directs the Institute for International Law and Justice’s cutting-edge project on Financing Development, in which real commercial law development financing transactions are studied alongside public law and governance techniques. This work is integrated with Professor Frank Upham's law and development focus on East Asia, pioneering work in international tax policy for development by Professors Mitchell Kane and Lily Batchelder (on Leave), and work on financial flows for climate change mitigation by Professor Richard Stewart and Dean Richard Revesz. Franco Ferrari and other Hauser Global Law School faculty work closely with students on arbitration moot courts and student scholarship. Leading arbitration practitioners teaching regularly at the Law School include Donald Donovan, who has also argued recent cases in the International Court of Justice and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Other faculty members whose scholarship and practice often intertwine with the fields of private and transactional international law include Professor Harry First, director of the Law School’s Trade Regulation Program; Professor Eleanor Fox '61, an expert in the field of international antitrust, and Professor Geoffrey Miller, director of the Center for the Study of Central Banks and Financial Institutions.
More on the International Law program from the Law School magazine
The Program in the History and Theory of International Law encourages scholarship and teaching on topics in the history and theory of international law that are vital to deepening an understanding of the field. The program holds periodic conferences and workshops, sponsors a refereed working paper series, hosts visiting fellows (including faculty from other disciplines and post-docs), supports research and publications, provides a center bringing together people interested in these fields and each year offers a set of courses in these areas at the Law School. The program is directed by Professor Benedict Kingsbury in cooperation with Professor Robert Howse and Hauser Global Law Professor Martti Koskenniemi. Professors Kingsbury and Weiler jointly convene the weekly IILJ International Legal Theory Colloquium every Spring semester.
NYU Law offers the LL.M. in International Legal Studies which is designed both to deepen knowledge of fundamental structures in international law and to provide opportunities for students to undertake research and build expertise in cutting-edge issues.
http://www.law.nyu.edu//academics/areasoffocus/international/curriculum/index.htm