International

Five Harvard Law School alumni, including Lecturer on Law and Clinical Instructor at the Human Rights Project Susan Farbstein ’04, have been selected as finalists for the 2010 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award, which is presented each year by the Public Justice foundation to an attorney or team of attorneys who have made the most outstanding contribution to the public interest through precedent-setting litigation.

On May 20, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that blanket disenfranchisement of people with disabilities is contrary to the European Convention of Human Rights.

Harvard Law School students participating in this year’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic wound up winning a hat trick this year, with the Supreme Court ruling in their favor in all three cases in which the clinic’s students were involved.  

The special rights guaranteed to First Nations receive inadequate attention in British Columbia when compared to mining interests, the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) at Harvard Law School said in a report released on June 7.

Lisa Kelly LL.M. ’08 was recently awarded a Trudeau Foundation Doctoral Scholarship. Annually, 15 doctoral candidates are awarded up to $180,000 each over a three-year period to support research “of compelling present-day concern” to the Trudeau Foundation, which was established in 2001 to honor the former prime minister of Canada.

Assistant Professor I. Glenn Cohen ’03, co-director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics, recently appeared on the PBS television show "Inside E-Street" to discuss his recent work on medical tourism. 

Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of a petition for certiorari in a major corporate Alien Tort Statute case, Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman Energy, Inc. The Clinic served as counsel on behalf of international law scholars and jurists to argue that those who knowingly aid and abet egregious human rights violations can be held liable under customary international law.

"War Don Don," a film directed Rebecca Richman Cohen '07, will be shown at this year’s Independent Film Festival in Boston on April 24 at 2:30 p.m. at the Somerville Theater. The film examines the aftermath of the civil war in Sierra Leone and how the international justice system tries to address the atrocities that were committed, documenting the trial of Issa Sesay, a former rebel leader who eventually played a role in the peace negotiations.

During January term, 2010, 13 Harvard Law School students traveled to 11 countries on Cravath International Fellowships to do clinical work and independent research.

Harvard Law School students interested in international law had an opportunity to hear a diverse array of speakers with first-hand experience at the 2010 Harvard International Law Journal Symposium Friday, April 2.

Harvard Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession (PLP) and leading European law firm Plesner announced a strategic collaboration today. Plesner will become the first European affiliate and supporter of PLP’s Center on Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry, which conducts and sponsors empirical research on the central questions facing the legal services industry.

The following op-ed by HLS Professor Alan Dershowitz, “Obama’s legacy and the Iranian bomb,” appeared in the March 23, 2010, edition of the Wall Street Journal.

As an impoverished youth in Kenya, Chris Mburu LL.M.’93 was threatened with expulsion from his primary school because he couldn’t afford the fees. A woman named Hilde Back decided to help, and wrote a check for $15 dollars to sponsor the Kenyan student for one term. Little did she know just how much Mburu’s life would be changed.

Harvard Law School has awarded prizes for outstanding written work to Cassandra Barnum ’10, Jonathan Bressler ’10 and Ryan Park ’10.

In 2003, a year after the International Criminal Court was created—the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal—Luis Moreno-Ocampo became its first prosecutor.

Harvard Law School Professor Hal Scott has been named co-chair of the newly-organized Council on Global Financial Regulation.

An op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Robert Mnookin, “Bargaining with the devil,” appeared in the February 17, 2010, edition of Foreign Policy magazine.

He survived repeat imprisonment, a car bombing that resulted in the loss of his arm, and vision in one eye, but through it all, Albie Sachs counts himself lucky to have played a pivotal role in his country’s history.