The University of Wisconsin Law School and the Office of International Studies and Programs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have announced the creation of a Global Legal Studies Initiative.
The Law School and International Studies will form a partnership to promote the understanding of international, transnational, and comparative legal systems, processes, and regimes, and extend this knowledge to constituencies both on and off campus.
The announcement was made at a March 5-6 symposium at the Fluno Center for Executive Education titled "Speaking Law to Power: International Law and Foreign Policy," organized by the Wisconsin International Law Journal and dedicated to Professor Richard Bilder, who has taught international law at the Law School since 1965.
"The UW Law School is proud to join International Studies, the International Institute's Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE) and the Institute for Legal Studies in the new Global Legal Studies Initiative," Kenneth B. Davis Jr., Law School dean, says. "With a large proportion of our faculty already involved in various aspects of law beyond U.S. borders, we look forward to expanding the ways in which we and our UW colleagues and students can integrate scholarship and service for the benefit of Wisconsin and our neighbors throughout the world."
UW Law Professor David Trubek, director of the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE), said the primary function of the initiative is to present students with research opportunities, visiting scholars and other events to "build bridges" to the rest of the university.
"We will be emphasizing the study of the role of law in a lot of the global changes that are going on in the world," Trubek said.
Though the initiative will not officially begin until the summer, Trubek said he has already planned two events that will take place next year. One is a workshop that will study how businesses are regulated across international borders. The second is a major conference that will examine how developing countries can better deal with legal issues in world trade laws.
The initiative will promote research in international legal studies, organize workshops and conferences, expand connections with scholars and institutions in the U.S. and overseas, deepen links with the International Institute and other international programs on campus, and share expertise with constituencies in Wisconsin and worldwide.
The Global Legal Studies Initiative will bring together Law School faculty with expertise in many international and comparative areas, and with extensive connections through member programs of the International Institute. The initiative will build on UW-Madison's strong corpus of socio-legal research in international legal studies, a long-standing history of work with colleagues in many countries, and a proud tradition of training lawyers from around the world. The initiative will begin by concentrating on three areas in which UW-Madison has special strengths:
? International economic law, including global corporate governance, transnational economic regulation, comparative antitrust and competition law, transatlantic relations, and global Internet law
? Development and transition, including the rule of law, law and development, comparative economic law, trade and development
? Human Rights, Democracy and Governance, including comparative constitutionalism, implementing socio-economic rights and humanitarianism.
One objective of the initiative will be the development of a new Center for Global Legal Studies to carry on the work of the initiative on a permanent basis.
Law School Dean Davis and International Studies and Programs Dean Gilles Bousquet have pledged their support to this new initiative and hope to launch the effort and sustain it for at least five years.
Submitted by on March 8, 2004
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