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On Monday, September 27, Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation will honor the former President of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, with the 2010 Great Negotiator Award.

“Historically, American presidents have rarely gotten far ahead of public opinion on civil rights issues, and the few times they have, they’ve paid a substantial price for doing so,” writes HLS Professor Michael Klarman in an L.A. Times op-ed, entitled “The political risks of supporting gay rights.”

Annette Gordon-Reed ’84, an award-winning historian, is one of 23 recipients of the 2010 MacArthur Fellowship, more commonly known as the MacArthur “Genius Award.” Gordon-Reed—the recipient of the National Humanities Medal, the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award—was recognized for dramatically changing the course of Jeffersonian scholarship.

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.  

President Barack Obama ’91 today announced that Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren will serve as an Assistant to the President and as a Special Adviser to the Treasury Secretary on the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The Commodities Future Trading Commission and the Securities Exchange Commission should closely consult the Federal Reserve on conflicts of interests affecting the nation's over-the-counter derivatives clearinghouses, wrote HLS Professor Hal Scott, director of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, in a letter to the chairman of the CFTC. 

In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the Supreme Court ruled 5-to-4 last June that a public law school did not violate the First Amendment by withdrawing recognition from a Christian student group that excluded gay students. On Sept. 8, the Harvard Federalist Society sponsored a discussion of Martinez and its implications for religious freedom.

Here is a roundup of fellowships and scholarships awarded this year to Harvard Law School students and recent graduates to pursue domestic and international work or educational opportunities. The list includes the names of the recipients, their grants, and the places where they will be working.

Nine years after Sept. 11 and 20 months into the Obama presidency, our nation is still flummoxed about what to do with captured terrorists, writes HLS Professor Jack Goldsmith in an op-ed in today's Washington Post. In his op-ed, "A way past the terrorist detention gridlock," Goldsmith says that while there is no "silver bullet" for this problem, there are several steps the administration could take toward resolution. 

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.”

Time Warner Cable recently announced that it has released five essays on the future of digital communications, policy and technical perspectives based on its Research Program on Digital Communications. One of the five was written by Harvard Law School Professor John Palfrey, who contributed an essay entitled "The Challenge of Developing Effective Public Policy on the Use of Social Media by Youth."

In his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed and subsequent appearance on the radio program 'The Takeaway,'  Harvard Law School Professor Noah Feldman discussed the Obama administration's pledge to withdraw troops from Iraq by Oct 2011. He argued that, if the nation is to flourish as an independent nation, the U.S. will be required to play a continuing role in maintaining security there for a long time to come.

This summer, HLS students traveled to distant locations – in Burma, Sierra Leone, Budapest, The Netherlands, Bolivia, South Africa, Ireland and Argentina – to do human rights advocacy work.

Five HLS students reflect on their summer legal work at home and abroad.

HLS Dean Martha Minow was interviewed on August 22 for the ‘Bibliophiles’ column in the Boston Globe. In the Q&A, Minow talks about her own summer reading list, book groups with the President, and the relevance of fiction and poetry in advancing our national dialogue on ethnic and religious conflict.

Of the 39 law school graduates who are serving as clerks to the U.S. Supreme Court justices and retired justices in the 2010-2011 term, 11 hail from Harvard Law School—the highest number from a single law school this year.

If it’s illegal to copy books and paintings, why should fashion designs be any different? That was the question posed by HLS Professor Jeannie Suk ‘02 and Columbia Law Professor C. Scott Hemphill in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal

Harvard Law School Professor Robert Mnookin ’68 appeared on PBS NewsHour on August 25. He spoke with economics correspondent Paul Solman about the rewards and challenges of negotiation. Mnookin is the author of “Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight,” which was published by Simon & Schuster in February.

Last year, as part of Harvard’s International Human Rights Clinic, Susannah Knox ’10 and Lauren Pappone ’11, traveled to British Columbia with Lecturer on Law and Clinical Instructor Bonnie Docherty '01 to investigate how mining affects the Takla Lake First Nation people.

Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren continues to gain support for serving as director of the newly created Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. In a letter to the Oval Office, HLS students from the classes of 2011 and 2012 are urging the president to nominate Warren for the top spot at the bureau.