International

As law becomes more global, options for foreign study expand Like his peers at Harvard Law School, Nels Hansen ’08 faced a heavy academic load…

At first, the notion that Israel could sit down with its sworn enemies and achieve a limited agreement to protect civilians seemed far-fetched to Gabriella Blum LL.M. ’01 S.J.D. ’03. The year was 1997, Blum was a young officer in the Israel Defense Forces, and she’d just been assigned to a group with the task of monitoring that noble, if dubious, effort.

Two years ago, HLS Professor Roberto Unger LL.M. ’70 S.J.D. ’76 publicly denounced the government of his native Brazil, calling it “the most corrupt in history.” He also called for the impeachment of its president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known throughout Brazil as “Lula.”

Brazilian Supreme Federal Court President Gilmar Ferreira Mendes discussed the development of Brazilian constitutional law since 1988 on Monday, October 27 in Pound Hall.

In a two-day conference sponsored by Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice—titled “Charting New Pathways to Participation and Membership”—attendees from the worlds of law, labor, government, academia talked about the obstacles to justice faced by many groups and how those impediments might be overcome.

South Africa’s constitution and Bill of Rights are relatively new, but there is already a growing body of decisions interpreting or wrestling with what they…

Just hours after embattled South African President Thabo Mbeki announced that he would resign on Sept. 21 students in a Harvard Law School classroom are absorbing the reverberations from a hemisphere away.

The following article by Professor Noah Feldman, "When judges make foreign policy," was the cover article for the September 28, 2008, New York Times Magazine.

HLS continues to expand its international focus—and its graduates are taking notice.

Assistant Professor Gabriella Blum LL.M. ’01 S.J.D. ’03, an international law scholar, is a native of Israel, where, as a young officer in the Israel Defense Forces International Law Department, she was involved in Israeli-Arab peace negotiations.

Christina Greenberg’s client was labeled disruptive and was sent home from elementary school every single day last spring. The 8-year-old—who is mentally disabled, has hydrocephalus, seizures and is in a wheelchair—then lost summer services because his school district failed to submit the necessary paperwork. His mother—struggling to care for her son and his disabled twin on $1,000 a month—was desperate when she reached Greenberg, a summer intern with Massachusetts Advocates for Children.

The graffiti started appearing in mid-February: “Aba Lavichè!” Lavi chè was Creole for la vie chère—the high cost of living. I should have realized. Rising prices for gas, basic foodstuffs and school fees had been the talk since I’d arrived last August to work for a small NGO that does human-rights law.

Iraq war veteran Erik Swabb ’09 recently returned to Iraq and was embedded with a U.S. combat unit, hoping to gain an informed assessment of…

The new curriculum embraces law’s increasingly transnational nature

This January, when the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor resumed in The Hague, much of the world was watching. So were 11 Harvard Law students—from about 20 feet away.

On May 16th, two HLS students, René A. Pfromm LL.M. '08 and Ines Wu '09, together with Stephan Sonnenberg '06, Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Program (HNMCP) clinical fellow and lecturer on law, delivered a one day workshop on negotiation in the context of genocide and mass atrocities.

Last week, five current Harvard Law School students who have served or are currently serving in the U.S. armed forces spoke to a packed audience about their experiences in Iraq. Panelists Robert Merrill '08, Geoff Orazem '09, Erik Swabb '09, Hagan Scotten '10, and Kurt White '10 each drew upon their varied military posts during the invasion, the Second Battle of Fallujah, and counterinsurgency operations, to explain what it is like to serve as a junior officer in Iraq.

There are now 16 clinics at HLS, enabling students to do fieldwork at home and abroad. Here are stories from three of them, taking students inside inner cities and inner sanctums.

In rural Liberia, locals have a method for determining if someone is guilty of witchcraft. They administer poison to the suspect. If he survives, he’s innocent. That’s the sort of anachronism that vexes Deborah Isser ’96, a senior program officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Robert B. Zoellick ’81, president of the World Bank Group, was recently on the law school campus to receive the HLS Association Award in recognition of his leadership and dedication to public service.

While in Guatemala this winter, Therese Rohrbeck touched what remains of The Dream of Pope Gregory IX.