FACULTY NEWS
Appointments FACULTY KUDOS Professor Elizabeth Kronk Warner appointed chair of U.S. Civil Rights committee Professor Elizabeth Kronk Warner has been appointed chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ Kansas State Advisory Committee. She started her two-year term in July. “The Kansas Advisory Committee works tirelessly to improve the lives of the people of Kansas,” Kronk Warner said. “I am honored to continue in this proud tradition and look forward to continued great work of the Kansas Advisory Committee.” The committee conducts reviews and produces reports and recommendations concerning local civil rights issues, including justice, voting, discrimination, housing and education. Congress mandates that the federal Commission appoint volunteer members to advisory committees in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Elinor Schroeder elected Fellow of College of Labor and Employment Lawyers Elinor Schroeder, the Paul E. Wilson Distinguished Professor of Law, has been elected a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers in recognition of her sustained outstanding performance in the profession. Schroeder became only the fourth Fellow in Kansas when she was installed Nov. 8 at the American Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section’s Continuing Legal Education Conference in Los Angeles. “I have had a wonderful career teaching great students in my labor and employment classes, and thinking, speaking, and writing about important issues in these areas,” said Schroeder, who joined the KU Law faculty in 1977. “Election to the College is truly icing on the cake. I am extremely grateful for this recognition.”
22 KU LAW MAGAZINE
RESEARCH
Study: Muslim nations take nuanced approach to ‘haram’ imports NEW RESEARCH FROM a KU Law professor and alumna shows confusion about how Islamic law applies to international trade. Islamic law declares the consumption of certain items such as alcohol, pork and pork products forbidden, or “haram.” Raj Bhala, associate dean for international and comparative law and Rice Distinguished Professor, and Shannon Keating, L’13, authored an article showing that the majority of Islamic nations do not ban the import of those three product groupings, even though World Trade Organization law allows them to do so. The reasons are numerous and nuanced. Bhala and Keating analyzed the tariff schedules of every Islamic country in the world with a majority Muslim population who are members of both the Organization of Islamic Conference and the WTO to see how they handled the importation of the three haram product categories. The findings, published in the International Lawyer, the most widely circulated international law journal in the world, show “diversity within unity.” The unity the researchers found is that all the countries in question identify as Muslim and consider alcohol, pork and pork products haram. The diversity is that most allow their import but employ different kinds of import restrictions. Some nations did not know they could ban the import of such goods when they joined GATT. Many used tariffs to influence how the goods are lawfully brought into their countries.