NYU’s unique Hauser Global Law School Program, established in 1995 with a generous gift from Rita and Gustave Hauser, incorporates non-US and transnational legal perspectives throughout the Law School’s curriculum, promotes scholarship on comparative and global law, and brings the world’s leading faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate law students to NYU to teach, conduct research and study side by side with their American counterparts.

By exchanging ideas and developing lasting relationships that transcend national boundaries, the Hauser Program has allowed for the creation of a broad and dynamic network of scholars throughout the world, one that can influence the future of legal education. The Hauser Global Law School Program ensures that all NYU students have the opportunity to be exposed to a wide range of global legal issues through their participation in Law School life. The grounding and knowledge provided by the Program serve law students extremely well, whatever their chosen career fields.

The Hauser Global Law School Program comprises four distinct and important groups: the Hauser Global Scholars, Global Fellows, Global Faculty, and Distinguished Global Fellows. 

  1. Hauser Global Scholars are graduate law students selected from around the world as future leaders across the fields of legal practice, public interest, government, and industry. Approximately ten outstanding graduate law students receive full scholarships each year from the Hauser Global Law School Program.   
  2. Hauser Global Fellows are academics, lawyers, government officers, and postdoctoral scholars from around the world who spend up to one year in residence at NYU Law working on personal research projects. The primary goal of this program is to facilitate the production of scholarship and the advancement of research on significant global issues.  
  3. Hauser Global Faculty are renowned international academics and practitioners who specialize in a wide range of legal subjects and are invited to teach specially designed courses, conduct research, and interact with each other and with faculty, students, and alumni.
  4. Hauser Distinguished Global Fellows are notable intellectual figures who visit the Law School for two or three weeks, and share their expertise with the community by giving lectures and contributing to other educational and scholarly events.

Over the years, many distinguished legal figures have participated in the Hauser Global Law School Program. Previous Global Faculty members include Georges Abi-Saab, former Chairman of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization and professor at the Institute des Hautes Etudes Internationales, Geneva; Giuliano Amato, former prime minister of Italy and professor at the European University Institute in Florence; Jürgen Habermas, Professor of  Philosophy and Sociology at Frankfurt University; Catherine O Regan, former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa; Dieter Grimm, former judge of the German Constitutional Court and Professor at Humboldt University; and Dorit Beinisch, former President of the Supreme Court of Israel. Previous Distinguished Global Fellows have included Justice Richard Goldstone of the South African Constitutional Court and Judge Bruno Simma of the International Court of Justice.

In 2005, NYU Law celebrated the 10th Anniversary of the Hauser Global Law School Program at a reunion event attended by prominent world leaders and legal experts including former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, former President of France Valery Giscard d’Estaing, and former President of the Dominican Republic Dr. Leonel Fernández. This event provided for the exchange of ideas between Hauser alumni and included a series of panels on international adjudication, the teaching of law, corporate professional responsibility, and international terrorism.

NYU Law proudly celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Hauser Global Law School Program and its myriad achievements in October 2014. The anniversary event brought together current and former faculty, scholars, fellows and alumni to examine the salient theme of Global Transitions in a series of panels over a two day period.  The event featured keynote speeches by Koen Lenaerts, Vice-President of the Court of Justice of the European Union and Mohamed ElBaradei LLM ’71, JSD ’74, LLD ’04, Nobel Peace Prize winner, former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the last vice president of Egypt.