The Global Faculty expand NYU Law's faculty by inviting leading law professors from around the world who teach regularly at NYU while retaining their affiliation with their home institutions. They specialize in diverse fields of law, not just international law, and are renowned scholars in their countries and areas of interest. Their courses provide an extraordinary opportunity for NYU students to learn from and interact with these eminent scholars and to gain a new perspective on important legal issues. Along with our Global Fellows and Hauser Global Scholars, the Global Faculty represent the heart of the Hauser Global Law School Program and a key element in the intellectual life of the Law School.
NYU School of Law's relationship with many global faculty is continuing and intimate over several years, rather than single one-semester or one-year arrangements. The global faculty are thereby integrated fully into the fabric of the Law School, both its academic programs and the collateral activities that largely define the institution.
Academic Year 2019-2020
Fall Semester
Dennis Davis
South Africa
Dennis Davis holds B.Com. and LL.B. degrees from the University of Cape Town, an M. Phil. from Cambridge, and an LL.D. (Hon) from the University of Cape Town. He taught at the University of Cape Town from 1977 to 1990. In 1990, he was appointed as Director of the Centre of Applied Legal Studies at the University of Witwatersrand. In 1995, he held joint professorial appointments at both Cape Town and Witwatersrand until he was appointed as judge of the Western Cape High Court in 1998. He became Judge President (Chief Judge) of the Competition Appeal Court in 2000, which is the highest court for antitrust/competition law in South Africa. He also serves as an appellate judge on the Labour Appeal Court.
During his career as an academic which continues at the University of Cape Town as a professor of law, Davis has taught in a wide range of fields including legal theory, constitutional law, competition law, labour law, taxation and company law. In this context he has held visiting appointments at Toronto, Harvard, NYU (2007), Brown, Cairo, Georgetown and Melbourne.
During the constitutional negotiations leading to a democratic South Africa, he was a drafter of the electoral laws and later of the constitutional provisions dealing with the federal structure of government. He later was one of the drafters of the Competition Act of 1998 and the Company’s Act of 2008. He has also advised in constitutional drafting in other transitional countries. During the 1990’s he moderated his own national television current affairs programme, Future Imperfect.
Representative publications include South African Constitutional Law: the Bill of Rights (with Halton Cheadle); The South African Law of Insurance; Precedent and Possibility: the use and abuse of Law in South Africa (with Michelle Leroux); Deference Lite: the Case for Social and Economic Rights, South African Journal of Human Rights (2006); Transformative Constitutionalism, South African Journal of Human Rights (with Karl Klare, 2010), Constitutional Values: Is Cosmopolitism Alive? (2014); and Lawfare: Judging Politics in South Africa (with Michelle Le Roux, 2019).
Courses:
Colloquium on Globalization, Economic Development, and Markets
Labor Law in the Context of Globalization
Martti Koskenniemi
Finland
Martti Koskenniemi is Academy Professor of International Law at the University of Helsinki and Director of the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights. He was a member of the Finnish diplomatic service 1978-1994, Judge with the Administrative Tribunal of the Asian Development Bank (1997- 2002) member of the International Law Commission (UN) in 2002-2006.
He has worked with several UN agencies and bodies and pleaded with the International Court of Justice. He has held lengthier visiting professorships in, among other places, NYU, Columbia University, University of Cambridge, London School of Economics, Melbourne University and Universities of Brussels, Paris, Sao Paulo and Utrecht. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has a doctorate h.c. from the Universities of Uppsala, Frankfurt and McGill. His main publications include From Apology to Utopia; The Structure of International Legal Argument (1989/2005), The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960 (2001) and The Politics of International Law (2011). He is currently working on a history of international legal thought from the late medieval period to the 19th century.
Course:
History of International Legal Thought: A Critical View
Ziba Mir-Hosseini
United Kingdom
Ziba Mir-Hosseini is a legal anthropologist, specializing in Islamic law, gender and development, and a founding member of the Musawah Global Movement for Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family (www.musawah.org). Currently a Professorial Research Associate at the Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, University of London, she has held numerous research fellowships and visiting professorships. She has published books on Islamic family law in Iran and Morocco, Iranian clerical discourses on gender, Islamic reformist thinkers, and the revival of zina laws. She has also co-directed two award-winning feature-length documentary films on Iran: Divorce Iranian Style (1998) and Runaway (2001). Her latest books are Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law: Justice and Ethics in the Islamic Legal Tradition, edited with Lena Larsen, Christian Moe and Kari Vogt (I. B. Tauris, 2013); Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition, edited with Mulki Al-Sharmani and Jana Rumminger (Oneworld, 2015). In 2015 she received the American Academy of Religion’s Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion.
Courses:
Islamic Law and Human Rights
New Trends in Muslim Legal Thought: The Question of Gender Equality
Spring Semester
Susy Frankel
New Zealand
Susy Frankel is a Professor of Law, holds the Chair in Intellectual Property and International Trade and is Director of the New Zealand Centre of International Economic Law at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her scholarship focuses on international intellectual property and its nexus with international trade; particularly treaty interpretation and the protection of indigenous peoples’ knowledge and innovation.
After graduating law school she worked in practise in New Zealand and in England. She was the President of the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property (ATRIP) from 2015-2017. Since 2008 Professor Frankel has been Chair of the Copyright Tribunal (NZ) and has previously worked as Assistant Commissioner of Trade Marks, Patents and Designs, Hearings Officer for the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (a quasi-judicial position for a specialist tribunal from 1998-2006). She has worked as expert advisor to the Waitangi Tribunal on claims brought against the New Zealand Government regarding protection of New Zealand’s indigenous people’s (Māori) intellectual property rights and has presented as an expert on the protection of traditional knowledge to the member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva.
Frankel has been a visiting Professor at many universities around the world, including at the University of Haifa (Reinhold Cohen Visiting Chair) 2014; University of Western Ontario 2012; Fellow of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge and visitor to the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law, University of Cambridge 2008; visiting Professor, University of Iowa 2000; and in 2013-2014 she was a Senior Fulbright Scholar and Senior Hauser Global Fellow at New York University. She is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of World Intellectual Property Law and the Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property (UK). She teaches copyright, trademarks, patents, international intellectual property and international trade law. In addition to articles on international intellectual property she has authored several books including, “Intellectual Property in New Zealand” (2nd Ed. 2011, 3rd ed 2020); “Test Tubes for Global Intellectual Property Issues” (2015) and co-authored “Patent Law and Policy” (2017).
Courses:
Intellectual Property & Globalization Seminar
International Intellectual Property Law
Tarun Khaitan
United Kingdom
Tarun Khaitan a Future Fellow at Melbourne Law School, working on a project on the resilience of democratic constitutions, with a focus on South Asia. He is also the Professor of Public Law and Legal Theory at Wadham College (Oxford), currently on special leave for four years starting 1 September 2017. He specialises in legal theory, constitutional law and discrimination law.
He is also a visiting Global Professor of Law at New York University Law School, the General Editor of the Indian Law Review, an Affiliate of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and an Associate of the Oxford Human Rights Hub. He completed his undergraduate studies (BA LLB Hons) at the National Law School (Bangalore) in 2004 as the 'Best All Round Graduating Student'. He then came to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and completed his postgraduate studies (BCL with distinction, MPhil with distinction, DPhil) at Exeter College. Before joining Wadham, he was the Penningtons Student (Fellow) in Law at Christ Church.
His monograph entitled A Theory of Discrimination Law (OUP 2015 hbk, South Asia edition and Oxford Scholarship Online, 2016 pbk) has been cited by the European Court of Human Rights and reviewed very positively in leading journals, including in Law and Philosophy where Sophia Moreau said "In this magnificent and wide-ranging book ... Khaitan attempts what very few others have tried." In Ethics, Deborah Hellman said that its 'ambitious scope and the careful argumentation it contains make it one of the best in the field’. In his review in the Modern Law Review, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen claimed that "Khaitan's account is sophisticated, extensive and among the best normative accounts of discrimination law available." Colm O'Cinneide's review in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies says that "Khaitan’s quest shows up the inadequacies of previous attempts to track down this Holy Grail, and the path he has laid down will encourage others to follow in his footsteps." The book won the Woodward Medal (with a cash prize of 10,000 Australian dollars) in 2019 for making ‘a significant contribution to knowledge in a field of humanities and social sciences.’ A full list of reviews is available here.
He helped draft the Indian Anti-Discrimination and Equality Bill 2017. His research on discrimination law has been quoted and relied upon by the Indian Supreme Court. He writes regularly for newspapers and blogs: links to his columns are available here. Prof Khaitan was awarded the 2018 Letten Prize, a 2 Million Norwegian Kroner award given biennially to a young researcher under the age of 45 conducting excellent research of great social relevance. He is using a part of the award towards setting up the Indian Equality Law Programme, aimed at capacity-building for early-career scholars.
Courses:
Comparative Constitutional Law
Theories of Discrimination Law Seminar
Mike Kobetsky
Australia
Dr Michael Kobetsky is a Global Professor of Law at the New York University Law School (2019–20) and previously in 2013–14. Dr Kobetsky is an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University, ANU College of Law, He is a Fellow at the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the Crawford School of Public Policy, the Australian National University. He is an Associate Professor at Melbourne Law School, the University of Melbourne and a co-director of the Tax Group (2016–18).
Dr Kobetsky researches in transfer pricing, tax treaties, international anti-avoidance measures and domestic taxation, and he is the principal author of one of Australia’s leading taxation texts, which is now in its ninth edition. His book, titled 'International Taxation of Permanent Establishments: Principles and Policy' was published by Cambridge University Press. Dr Kobetsky has published extensively on international taxation in journals and edited books. He has presented seminars and conference papers around the world, including in: Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Chinese Taipei, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nepal, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, the UK and the US.
Dr Kobetsky was a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University, Faculty of Law, Centre for Tax Law and Wolfson College, Cambridge (2012) and he was a Visiting Professor at the Western University Law School (Canada) (2018–19 and 2011–12).
Dr Kobetsky is a member of the United Nations Sub-Committee on Transfer Pricing and the United Nations Sub-Committee on Extractive Industries Taxation Issues for Developing Countries. He has worked as a consultant for the OECD, IMF, World Bank, USAID, AusAID, GIZ and the IBFD. From 2007 to 2011 Dr Kobetsky was a regular presenter in the areas of tax treaties and transfer pricing at the Asian Development Bank Institute's Regional Tax Forum, Tokyo, for developing Asian economies.
Dr Kobetsky has 10 years’ experience as a senior executive officer with the Australian Taxation Office designing and implementing tax law and policies. He also worked for two years for the Library of the Parliament of Australia, providing advice to parliamentary members and senators on taxation proposals and bills being debated in the Parliament.
Courses:
Comparative Tax Policy Seminar: After the BEPS measures
Tax Treaties
Friedrich Rosenfeld
Germany
Dr. Friedrich Rosenfeld is a German attorney specialized in arbitration and public international law. He acts as counsel, expert and arbitrator. Before joining his current firm, Friedrich worked as a consultant for the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials in Cambodia.
Friedrich is Global Adjunct Professor of Law at NYU Law in Paris, a lecturer for investment arbitration at the Bucerius Law School in Hamburg as well as Visiting Professor for arbitration at the International Hellenic University in Thessaloniki. In 2014, he was appointed Global Hauser Fellow from Practice & Government at NYU School of Law.
Friedrich studied at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg and at Columbia Law School in New York. He earned his PhD summa cum laude and speaks German, English, French and Spanish.
Courses:
International Commercial Arbitration
Global Visiting Scholar
Eyal Benvenisti
Israel
Eyal Benvenisti is Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge, Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, and C. C. Ng Fellow in Law, Jesus College. His is a professor of law at Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law, and a Global Professor of Law at New York University School of Law (since 2003). He was Hersch Lauterpacht Professor of Law at the Hebrew University (from 1990), and Visiting Professor at Yale, Harvard, Toronto, Columbia, Pennsylvania, Michigan. In 2013 he gave a special course at The Hague Academy of International Law. Eyal’s areas of research and teaching are international law, constitutional law and administrative law. He is Project Director for the “GlobalTrust – Sovereigns as Trustees of Humanity” research project, funded by an ERC Advanced Grant.
Professor Benvenisti is the recipient of several prizes including the Humboldt Research Award and the Francis Deak Prize. He is an Associate Member, Institut de droit international (2011). He is the co Editor of the British Yearbook of International Law, and also on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of International Law. Eyal’s most recent publications include: Between Fragmentation and Democracy: The Role of National and International Courts (forthcoming, CUP) (with George W. Downs); The Law of Global Governance, in the Collected Courses of The Hague Academy of International Law (2014; issued also as a “pocket book”); The International Law of Occupation (2nd ed., Oxford University Press 2012); War is Governance: Explaining the Logic of the Laws of War from a Principal-Agent Perspective, 112 MICHIGAN L. REV. 1363 (2014) (with Amichai Cohen); Sovereigns as Trustees of Humanity: On the Accountability of States to Foreign Stakeholders, 107 AM. J. INT’L. L. 295 (2013).