Prof. Mortimer Sellers Joins ASIL
at Historic Meeting in Lviv, Ukraine
CICL director Prof. Mortimer Sellers was part of a delegation of 75 international law experts and 75 Ukrainian counterparts attending a conference in partnership with the Ukrainian government, legal community and civil society leaders, and the American Society of International Law (ASIL).
The December 2023 conference convened in Lviv, Ukraine, to 1) reaffirm commitment to fundamental principles of international law, 2) respond to the call of the Ukrainian legal community for partnership, and 3) reflect on the role of international law at this historic inflection point. The summit was timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Genocide Convention and the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, leveraging these international-law milestones to inform public opinion and catalyze concrete action.
While there, the delegation drafted the Lviv Declaration on the Fundamental Principles of International Law, promulgated jointly by ASIL and the Ukrainian Association of International Law.
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Prof. Nienke Grossman Appointed
to Inter-American Juridical Committee
Prof. Nienke Grossman, co-director of the CICL, was elected to the Inter-American Juridical Committee (IAJC) on Jan. 17, 2024, following nomination by the United States and a vote by the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS).
The committee serves the OAS in an advisory capacity and promotes the progressive development and codification of international law. Its members are distinguished international law experts from across the Inter-American region. She is the first woman from the United States to serve in this capacity.
Among topics currently on the agenda of the IAJC as Grossman joins the committee are:
- development of Inter-American guidelines on the participation of victims in criminal proceedings against acts of corruption;
- strengthening the accountability regime in the use of information and communications technologies;
- legal implications of the sea-level rise in the Inter-American regional context; and
- corporate responsibility of manufacturers and sellers of weapons in the area of human rights.
Grossman recently returned from the IAJC regular session held in Panama City, Panama, in March 2024. She is on sabbatical during academic year 2023-2024, and she has been busy with a number of scholarship projects, including writing an entry on Feminist Approaches to International Law for the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law and contributing chapters to and co-editing the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Women and International Law, as well as speaking at various events.
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Prof. Ioanna Tourkochoriti Joins
UBalt Law Faculty and CICL
Prof. Ioanna Tourkochoriti joined the faculty at UBalt Law in August 2023 and also assumed the role of CICL associate director.
Tourkochoriti is a leading scholar on comparative law, jurisprudence and human rights. She brings to the CICL a robust research and publishing agenda on comparative constitutional law, freedom of expression, and anti-discrimination law.
During the Fall 2023 semester, Tourkochoriti presented at the hot topics plenary panel during the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Comparative Law. She shared her research on the EU’s Digital Services Act and its global impact at Florida International University College of Law in Miami, from Oct. 26-28, 2023. On Dec. 4, she presented her research on content moderation by social media platforms and the Digital Services Act at the conference, “The State of Free Speech: Challenges and Solutions for the Digital Age,” held in Stockholm.
Earlier in the year, she participated in the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Legal and Social Philosophy (AMINTAPHIL) as commentator on participants’ papers. The meting was held at Loyola University of Chicago, from Sept. 21-23. She has joined AMINTAPHIL’s executive board as program chair for its 2024 Annual Meeting.
So far in 2024, Tourkochoriti delivered a Feb. 2 lecture at American University Washington College of Law based on her Cambridge book volume, Freedom of Expression, the Revolutionary Roots of American and French Legal Thought. The lecture event included commentary by three discussants: Prof. Günter Frankenberg (Max-Planck Institut Frankfurt), Prof. Mark Graber (University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law), and Prof. Fernanda Nicola (American University Washington College of Law). The event was chaired by Prof. Padideh Ala’I (American University Washington College of Law).
Tourkochoriti’s recent publications include:
- “Is Neutrality Possible? A Critique of the Court of Justice of the European Union on Headscarves in the Workplace from a Comparative Perspective”, 71 Am. J. Comp. L. (2023) 1-42
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“The Constitutional Politics of Religion,” in Research Handbook on the Politics of Constitutional Law, Mark Tushnet and Dimitry Kochenov eds., (Edward Elgar, 2023).
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“Religious Rights,” in The Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, Katherine Valke, Jaakko Husa and Jan Smits, eds., (Edward Elgar, 2023).
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Law student Alfe Azad participated last fall in a United Nations event focused on women’s rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), also known as North Korea.
Led by UBalt Law Prof. Nienke Grossman, who is also co-director of the CICL, the event marked the conclusion of the International Women’s Rights seminar class and Azad's summer work with Grossman, where their extensive research on women’s rights in the DPRK contributed to the ongoing work of Prof. Elizabeth Salmón, a professor of international law at the Pontifical Catholic University in Peru and the first woman Special Rapporteur on human rights in the DPRK.
Read more.
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Janet E. Lord, appointed executive director of the CICL in November 2023, was a featured presenter at the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Nov. 30 Women, Peace and Security Learning Exchange on the topic, “Disability Inclusion and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.”
Her presentation focused on a research stream she developed at the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, which has resulted in publications on various aspects of the disability, peace and security nexus and appearing in several journals.
In January, she presented her research findings and recommendations at the International Criminal Court Bar Association based in The Hague.
Read more.
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Steven Stec joins the CICL and the UBalt Law faculty as an adjunct professor for Spring 2024,. teaching the International Environmental Law Seminar.
A leading international environmental lawyer and scholar, he is also a senior fellow at the Central European University Democracy Institute (CEU DI) in Budapest, where he is lead researcher on environment and democracy.
He is CEU’s primary investigator in REAL DEAL, a project funded by the European Commission Horizon program aimed at fostering citizen engagement in the European Green Deal, a set of policy initiatives to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and make Europe climate-neutral by 2050.
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University of Baltimore School of Law
1420 N. Charles St.| Baltimore 21201
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