54 AUTUMN 2002
International Law at NYU Should United States courts grant redress to Holocaust survivors or their families against German industries for profits made from slave labor under the Nazi regime? NYU Law Professor Burt Neuborne and Law School trustee Melvyn I. Weiss (’59) worked indefatigably on these claims, ultimately negotiating the establishment of a $5 billion trust fund that is now making payments to thousands of elderly survivors. If even Holocaust-era claims are within the jurisdiction of U.S. courts in general, are there nevertheless foreign governmental entities that, for international legal and policy reasons, should have immunity from U.S. court proceedings, in the same way that the U.S. government would expect to claim sovereign immunity from certain proceedings in foreign courts? International civil litigation experts Professors Andreas Lowenfeld and Linda Silberman have been involved in arguing some of these cases. The more recent atrocities in Yugoslavia are being litigated in the International Court of Justice, where Professor Thomas Franck is arguing that the war-ravaged state of Bosnia is entitled to compensation from the new democratic government of Serbia-Montenegro for genocide committed under the former Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic. The latest anti-U.S. terrorist attacks have led to Professor David Golove’s work on the problem of how much power the U.S. President has to establish Military Commissions to try suspected terrorists. He makes the important claim that the Constitution itself defines the scope of the President’s war powers by reference to the international law of war. He argues the President has no constitutional authority to establish tribunals that fail to live up to international law standards. These are the kinds of problems that will be central to the work of lawyers in the 21st century, drawing together national law, international law, and issues of national and global governance. They require international legal rules, and the design of international legal institutions, that are integrated with national law and policy but have global applicability and legitimacy. NYU Law’s international law program tackles these problems. Its superb
faculty combines robust, theoretically driven research with a practical commitment to finding legal and policy solutions. NYU Law transformed legal education and research agendas through the Hauser Global Law School Program, bringing together a global faculty and a global student body, and introducing transnational and comparative dimensions throughout the curriculum. This year marks the next major step in the Global Law School initiative with the formation of the Institute for International Law and Justice. This new Institute is the focal point for research, innovative policy ideas, and rigorous academic training on specific international law dimensions of the globalization of law. It brings a concentrated focus on the traditional intergovernmental techniques for making and enforcing law between states, and on the problems of adapting or remaking this traditional system to provide an architecture to meet the new demands of global governance. International
law is a special component in the growth of global law and the management of globalization, requiring distinctive expertise among professors that can be passed on in the training of future practitioners, policymakers, and scholars. The creation of the Institute for International Law and Justice is a further instance of the vision animating the Global Law School initiative: that simply training tomorrow’s lawyers and leaders in national and local law is not adequate for a future of global law and global policy problems. The Institute further enriches the remarkable intellectual environment already created through the Hauser Global Law School Program. With faculty and students from all over the world, and extraordinary opportunities to get involved in practical problems through research programs, internships, colloquia, and symposia, NYU Law provides unparalleled education and training for students who will work on the future problems of global governance. ■
NYU Law provides unparalleled education and training for students who will work on the future problems of global governance.
(l-r): Joseph Weiler, Philip Alston, Benedict Kingsbury, Kirsty Gover, David Golove, and Mattias Kumm of NYU Law’s Institute for International Law and Justice