McGeorge International Law Faculty Address Global Challenges

MCGEORGE GLOBAL CENTER 2019

From the McGeorge Global Center Directors

From its inception, the McGeorge Global Center has worked on addressing global environmental challenges, understanding the global economy and promoting the rule of law. Current events demonstrate how vital these concerns continue to be. In this newsletter, we are pleased to report on how we are meeting these goals both in scholarship and in action, as well as on other developments at the Global Center.

Addressing Global Environmental Challenges

The climate crisis, mass extinctions, threatened oceans and forests — with so much at stake, we are proud of our efforts to ensure a sustainable future.

Stephen McCaffrey ’s lifetime of achievement in developing international water and environmental law was recognized last year when he received the Distinguished Elisabeth Haub Award for Environmental Law and Diplomacy. This follows him being named Stockholm Water Prize Laureate in a presentation by the King of Sweden. He also was re-elected last year to the Implementation Committee for the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes.

In addition, Oxford University Press published the third edition of Professor McCaffrey’s The Law of International Watercourses this year, while Edward Elgar added “ Research Handbook on International Water Law ,” on which Professor McCaffrey served as lead editor and contributor, to its highly regarded Research Handbook book series. Professor McCaffrey’s paper, “ International Water Law in the Anthropocene ,” delivered in acceptance of the Haub award, has been published in the peer-edited journal Environmental Policy and Law and he has been invited to present lectures during The Hague Academy of International Law's first session of 2020.

The impact of environmental degradation in developing countries is the focus of recent scholarship by Rachael Salcido . In Rethinking Environmental Impact Assessment in Guatemala Mining (part of a book using Guatemala as a case study of a developing country with an extraction-based economy), Professor Salcido uses interviews with government agencies, stakeholders and community members impacted by mining in Guatemala to evaluate the environmental impact assessment regime for mining in Guatemala. In her paper, Weaponizing Environmental Justice , presented at the Fourth National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference in March of this year, Professor Salcido examines community benefit agreements and the perverse use of environmental justice principles to undermine healthy environments in low-income and minority communities.

Opening the door to an underexplored aspect of global sustainability, Courtney Lee argues that developing nations should reject the expansion of large-scale industrialized animal agriculture (factory farming) in From Footnote to Forethought: Considering the Consequences of Large-Scale, Industrialized Animal Agriculture in Developing Nations , just published in the UC Davis Journal of International Law and Policy.

2020 McGeorge Center Annual Symposium: Rethinking International Law for the Age of the Anthropocene

As illustrated by the fires in the Amazon and the inability of the international community to intervene when events in one nation threaten the habitability of the planet, the McGeorge Global Center Spring 2020 Symposium (tentatively April 17, 2020) will examine whether international law is adequate or can be made adequate to the challenges presented by the climate crisis, potential mass extinctions, and other threats to the planetary ecosystem, as well as to dealing with the results of such environmental degradation, including the decrease of habitable lands and the mass migration of the deposed. We will be sending to you more details on this important event.

Understanding the Global Economy

While the Trump administration might have thought we could launch a trade war that would cause “pain on them, not pain on us,” the Global Center works to provide a sophisticated understanding of the interconnections of a global economy.

Last April, the Global Center put on a two-day conference exploring the Changing Regulation of Pharmaceuticals: Issues in Pricing, Intellectual Property, Trade and Ethics . Over 50 speakers took a comprehensive look at the legal and policy issues arising from U.S. and international intellectual property protection, application of competition law, drug pricing and drug safety regulation, international trade and regulatory exclusivities, which contribute to the high cost of global healthcare. The conference sponsors included the Biotechnology Innovation Organization; VIT University School of Law (Chennai, India); Intellectual Property Institute of China University of Political Science and Law (Beijing, China); University of Copenhagen Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law; Gibson Dunn; Schinders Law (Guangzhou, China); Erin Dunston (Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney); Wake Forest University School of Law; Drake University Law School; and Texas A&M School of Law.

Among the leading experts in their fields who spoke at the conference were Jay Thomas (Georgetown Law); Mark Lemley (Stanford Law School); Henry Greely (Stanford Law School); Dean Manimuthu Gandhi (VIT University School of Law); Timo Minssen (University of Copenhagen Law); Ruth Okediji (Harvard Law School); Jorge Contreras (Utah Law School); Mike Mireles (McGeorge); Margo Bagley (Emory Law School); Judge Mark Schweizer (president of Switzerland’s Federal Patent Court); Simone Rose (Wake Forest Law); Chris Holman (University of Missouri-Kansas City and Drake University Law School); Peter K. Yu (Texas A&M School of Law); and Hans Sauer (vice president for intellectual property, Biotechnology Industry Organization).

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe just published its revised Policy Framework for Sustainable Real Estate Markets , a report of the Real Estate Market Advisory Group, of which Michael Malloy is a member. Professor Malloy was one of the principal contributors to this new version of the Policy Framework, which reflects the emergence of key international agreements — the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Geneva United Nations Charter on Sustainable Housing, the New Urban Agenda, and the Basel III Agreement on Capital Adequacy, among others — that led to the emergence of new, more integrated approaches on sustainable urban development at all levels.

Michael Malloy’s paper, Interdisciplinarity: Classic Crossover Cases and Effective Law Pedagogy , was published in 2019 by the Athens Institute for Education and Research in a proceedings volume, New Challenges of the Law in a Permeable World. Separately, publisher Wolters Kluwer issued several 2019 supplements for Malloy's three-volume treatise, Banking Law and Regulation.

Jarrod Wong has led several major discussions of leading experts addressing the current trade negotiations. He organized, moderated and presented on the hot topic panel, “ NAFTA 2.0: Are We Building or Burning Bridges with USMCA? ” at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). Earlier, he moderated the plenary panel on “Current Trade Developments” at the 2018 American Society of International Law (ASIL) Research Form, held at UCLA Law in November. In September 2018, he moderated a panel on trade law at the Joint North American Conference on International Economic Law.

Promoting the Rule of Law

In a time of ascendancy by those who view the world in terms of raw power and crass transactional dealings, the Global Center continues its efforts to promote the rule of law. These efforts include:

Addressing the Legal Principles for Transnational Dispute Resolution

Jarrod Wong and Brian Slocum presented their paper The Ordinary Meaning of International Law , which presents a sophisticated interdisciplinary examination of the use of ordinary meaning in treaty interpretation, at the annual Northern California International Law Scholars Workshop hosted this September at McGeorge and will present the paper again in November at the 2019 ASIL Research Forum at Brooklyn Law. Professor Wong also presented his paper, The Chimera of a World Investment Court , which analyzes the Investment Court System adopted by the European Union, at the AALS Alternative Dispute Resolution Conference this month, and will do so again at the 2020 ASIL International Economic Law Interest Group Biennial in February 2020. Finally, in Panel Proceedings: International Arbitration in The Asia-Pacific: Prospects and Challenges of a Dynamic and Growing Field , 112 Am. Soc'y Int'l L. Proc. 97 (2019), Professor Wong and his co-panelists at the 2018 ASIL Annual Meeting consider various international arbitration developments across Asia.

In January 2019, Franklin Gevurtz presented his paper, Extraterritoriality and the Fourth Restatement of Foreign Relations Law: Opportunities Lost , which critiques the Restatement’s treatment of the presumption against extraterritoriality, at the Symposium on “The Extraterritorial State” sponsored by the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School and held at Willamette Law School. The paper will appear later this year in the published version of the symposium.

West Academic published this year Stephen McCaffrey and Thomas Main’s, Learning Conflict of Laws , which is designed to illuminate the practice of this complex area of law through the use of contemporary fact patterns in hypotheticals and simulations.

Advancing Human Rights

In recent publications, Julie Davies focuses on the rights of indigenous populations. In Dissonant Voices: Understanding Guatemala's Failure to Amend Its Constitution to Recognize Indigenous Law , just published in the UC Davis Journal of International Law and Policy, Davies and her co-author Luis Mogollón use interviews conducted in the country in an effort to understand why Guatemala, despite its large indigenous population, has failed to recognize indigenous law as part of its legal system. In The Impact of Mining on Self-Determination in Rural Guatemalan Communities , appearing in a book jointly published by the American Bar Association International Law Section and Carolina Academic Press, she identifies and critiques the effectiveness of international and domestic laws that are intended to protect the rights of indigenous and rural populations to meaningful consultation and self-determination with regard to projects situated within their lands.

In another chapter in this jointly published book, A Migration Story from the Sugar Fields of Southwest Guatemala: A Case for Treating Corporations as Persecutors Under Asylum and Refugee Law , Blake Nordahl makes the case that U.S. asylum and refugee law should recognize so-called "economic refugees" from nations like Guatemala as victims of a structural persecution, which involves collusion between the government and large corporations.

At the June 2019 International Society of Family Law Conference sponsored by the United Nations Committee for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Lawrence Levine spoke as a panelist in a session entitled Public Engagement: LGBT Rights and Family Vulnerability . He addressed the tension between LGBTQ+ discrimination protections and religious liberty in the United States.

Last December, Linda Carter led the American NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court (AMICC) delegation to the 2018 session of the Assembly of States Parties (the managing body of the International Criminal Court). Emerita Professor Carter also taught in the Master of Laws program of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) in both March 2018 and 2019.

In October 2018, Omar Dajani presented Oslo and the Negation of International Law at the Middle East Monitor Conference on the Oslo Accords at 25 in London, while last November, he presented An Emerging Constitutionalism in Israel/Palestine? as part of a panel on “Constitutions in the Contemporary Middle East: Do They Still Matter?” at the 2018 Middle East Studies Association annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. In June, Professor Dajani and Dahlia Scheindlin presented their paper, Stuck Together: Confederal Models for Israel/Palestine , at the mid-year meeting of the International Studies Association in Belgrade, Serbia, while in September, he presented at the Northern California International Law Scholars workshop introductory and concluding chapters for a book, From Revolution to Devolution , co-authored with Asli Bali of UCLA, in which they explore the promise of decentralization as a means to decrease authoritarianism in the Middle East.

Professor Dajani and co-author Hugh Lovatt had their paper Rethinking Oslo: How Europe can Promote Peace between Israel and Palestine published in the book The Oslo Peace Process: A Twenty-Five Years Perspective by Ephraim Lavie, Yael Ronen and Henry Fishman (eds) (Carmel 2019) 549-564.

In Legalizing Marijuana: Lessons from the United States , CXXX Studi Senesi 59 (2018), Michael Vitiello explores lessons that Italian legal scholars and practitioners might learn from the American experience as the United States moves toward a national solution to marijuana legalization. Last May, he was part of a panel of scholars hosted by the University of Bergamo who discussed issues surrounding the legalization of marijuana.

Leadership in Learned Societies Addressing International Law

Jarrod Wong

is co-chair of the 114th Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) in 2020. The four-day event attracts over 1,000 attendees, features more than 230 speakers and is one of the largest annual international law events in the U.S., if not the world. He looks forward to seeing many of you there. He also serves on the ASIL Executive Committee, was the immediate past co-chair of the ASIL International Economic Law Interest Group (IELIG), helped organize the Joint North American Conference on International Economic Law at McGill Law and co-chaired the 2018 ASIL Research Forum at UCLA Law.

Franklin Gevurtz

was elected to a fourth two-year term as secretary of the American Society of Comparative Law at the Society's annual meeting in July 2018. As a member of the International Academy of Comparative law, he chaired a session at the 2018 International Congress of Comparative Law in Fukuoka, Japan, at which experts from different nations compared their laws dealing with abuses by parent companies and controlling shareholders in corporate groups.

Courtney Lee

is organizing and leading the AALS Section on Animal Law 2020 program titled "Crossing Borders: International Animal Law," which focuses on international animal law and is co-sponsored by the AALS Section on International Law.

Helping Nations Develop the Legal Infrastructure Upon Which the Rule of Law Depends

Recognizing the need to support budding scholars from developing countries, we have expanded our Doctor of Juridical (JSD) program. Stephen McCaffrey continues to supervise 10 JSD candidates in International Water Resources Law coming from nine different countries: Afghanistan, Canada, Ethiopia, France, Iran, Iraq, Korea, Greece and Uzbekistan.

Omar Dajani , Franklin Gevurtz , Clark Kelso , Michael Malloy , Christine Manolakas , Mike Mireles , Francis J. Mootz , Mike Vitiello and Jarrod Wong are supervising 14 additional candidates in the new JSD in International Legal Studies program. The candidates’ dissertation topics include comparative and international law topics related to administrative law, alternative dispute resolution, business law, civil procedure, contracts, human rights, intellectual property, social media and criminal law, treaties and tax. Faculty and students celebrated the advancement to candidacy of several of the students in this new program.

Our longstanding summer program in Salzburg, Austria, continues to expose U.S. and non-U.S. students to important issues in protecting human rights.

The course offerings at the 2019 program included Freedom of Expression, co-taught by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy (Ret.) and Professor Sionaidh Douglas-Scott from Queen Mary's University; Corporate Governance and Human Rights, co-taught by Professor Patrick Warto, University of Salzburg and Professor Peter Winship, SMU School of Law; and Democracy and the Rule of Law, taught by Doctor Wolfgang Brandstetter, a justice of the Constitutional Court of Austria. In addition to the above graduate law program, McGeorge piloted an undergraduate track whose offerings included Comparative Legal Systems: Human Rights Law taught by Mary-Beth Moylan .

Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz , now interim provost, was invited to deliver a keynote address entitled Modern Brain Science, Innovation in Interactive Teaching Techniques, and Curriculum Innovation in Legal Education , at United Arab Emirates University.

Last June, Michael Vitiello participated and presented as part of a panel of scholars hosted by the University of Parma who discussed legal issues surrounding class action lawsuits, a legal concept absent in Italian law.

UPCOMING EVENTS

What Is Your International Program Doing for the Next Generation?

At the forthcoming 2020 AALS annual meeting, the Global Center will once again host the longtime McGeorge School of Law Breakfast for International Law faculties. The breakfast program will ask what your international programs are doing for the next generation. The recent Climate Strike of young people around the world prompts us to ask what are we doing to pass on a livable world to our children. This, of course, includes addressing the global environmental challenges posed by climate change, mass species extinction and pollution. It also can include, however, growing threats to democracy, human rights, the rule of law and the international institutions that built peace and prosperity. We are inviting faculty engaged in international programs at law schools around the country to attend this breakfast and share what their programs are doing to help meet these challenges. Additional details will be forthcoming. We look forward to seeing you there.

McGeorge Global Center Spring 2020 symposium

The McGeorge Global Center Spring 2020 symposium will examine whether international law is adequate or can be made adequate to the challenges presented by the climate crisis, potential mass extinctions, and other threats to the planetary ecosystem, as well as to dealing with the results of such environmental degradation, including the decrease of habitable lands and the mass migration of the deposed. We will be sending to you more details on this important event.

Visit the McGeorge Global Center website.