News

January 4, 2010: Center appoints International Law Fellow

The Center for International Law has appointed Raymond P. Girnys II as International Law Fellow. During their semester-long appointments, Fellows provide timely international law memoranda to practitioners, government bodies, civic groups, and international organizations. As part of his fellowship, Mr. Girnys will work closely with Associate Professor Tai-Heng Cheng towards the completion of his forthcoming book with Oxford University Press, INTERNATIONAL LAW AS COMMITMENT.

A 2L at New York Law School, Mr. Girnys is a member of the Law Review and also a John Marshall Harlan Scholar. He graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in both history and political science from the University of Scranton where he was a four-year varsity letterwinner on the school's baseball team.


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September 9, 2009: Center newsletter wins major award

The International Review was awarded the 2009 Gold Award for “Most Improved Editorial (Print Newsletter)” in the Sixth Annual Magnum Opus Awards. Managed by ContentWise in conjunction with the Missouri School of Journalism, the Magnum Opus Awards is “the leading custom publishing awards program recognizing excellence in editorial content, design, and strategy.” According to the awards program, The International Review, which marked its 10-year anniversary this past spring, “stood out as among the best in custom publishing.”



A panel of publishing professionals and professors from the Missouri School of Journalism judged the competition, which included almost 600 entries. Other award winners include The Walt Disney Company, Toyota, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Deloitte, LLP. (Last year, New York Law School Magazine also received an award in the category of “Most Improved Editorial.”)

First published in 1999 by New York Law School's Center for International Law under the direction of Professor Sydney M. Cone, III, and Managing Editor Michael Rhee, The International Review is the only academic newsletter published by an ABA-accredited law school that reports on a wide range of contemporary international and comparative law issues. Unlike similar publications whose stories are often unreadable and laden with technical and obscure jargon, the articles in The International Review are written in plain English, yet still provide information that is legally accurate. This makes the newsletter’s content accessible to non-specialists in international law and also to non-lawyers and the general public.

The International Review was also awarded the 2007 Gold Award for “Best Edited Organization Newsletter” by the publisher of The Newsletter on Newsletters, which TIME magazine described as "the bible of the [newsletter] industry."


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April 21, 2009: The International Review celebrates its 10th year of publication

The recently published Spring 2009 issue of The International Review marks its 10-year anniversary.



First published in 1999 by New York Law School's Center for International Law under the direction of Director Sydney M. Cone, III, and Managing Editor Michael Rhee, The International Review is the only academic newsletter published by an ABA-accredited law school that reports on a wide range of contemporary international and comparative law issues. Unlike similar publications whose stories are often unreadable and laden with technical and obscure jargon, the articles in The International Review are written in plain English, yet still provide information that is legally accurate. This makes the newsletter’s content accessible to non-specialists in international law and even to non-lawyers and the general public.

The International Review was awarded the 2007 Gold Award for “Best Edited Organization Newsletter” by the publisher of The Newsletter on Newsletters, which TIME magazine described as "the bible of the [newsletter] industry."

The 10-year anniversary issue (and all back issues) are available for free on the Center's homepage.


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March 25, 2009: Center Associate Director Tai-Heng Cheng elected to prestigious organization

Center Associate Director Tai-Heng Cheng was recently elected a member of the American Law Institute (ALI), a national organization of judges, lawyers, and law teachers dedicated to improving the law and the administration of justice.

Established in 1923, the American Law Institute promotes the “clarification and simplification of the law and its better adaptation to social needs, to secure the better administration of justice, and to encourage and carry on scholarly and scientific legal work.” One of the ways the organization does this is through its Restatements of the Law, formulations of the law that have been influential in judicial decisions and scholarship.

The ALI has 3,000 elected members, selected for their demonstrated achievement and leadership in the legal profession. The majority of candidates accepted are judges of a court of record, tenured professors at an accredited law school, and partners in a law firm. As an associate professor currently on the tenure track at New York Law School, Professor Cheng stands apart for being elected to the ALI at this stage in his career—a testament to his significant expertise and accomplishments in international law.


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November 11, 2008: Center Associate Director Tai-Heng Cheng provides legal advice to Kosovo government

From October 9 through 14, 2008, New York Law School Professor Tai-Heng Cheng traveled to the Balkans to advise the Republic of Kosovo and the International Civilian Office responsible for implementing the status settlement of Kosovo.

“I was honored and humbled to have been invited to visit Kosovo and consult with a broad range of decision-makers, all engaged in building a sovereign nation in the first critical year of its existence,” Professor Cheng said. Professor Cheng advised the Office of the President and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the pending Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of Kosovo’s declaration of independence.

He noted: “Serbia would like the ICJ to decide that Kosovo’s independence was illegal. However, that ship has sailed. Trying to unwind Kosovo’s independence now would risk instability and violence in the Balkans.”

Professor Cheng also discussed various legal issues with the International Civilian Office, including border delimitation, state succession, sovereign debt, recognition by other states of Kosovo’s statehood, and treaties. In addition, he gave a lecture on state succession at the University of Pristina School of Law to students and attorneys from the Ministry of Justice.


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September 4, 2008: Appointment of new International Law Fellow

The Center for International Law has appointed Stuart Barden as International Law Fellow. During their semester-long appointments (with honoraria), Fellows provide timely international law memoranda to practitioners, government bodies, civic groups, and international organizations. In his fellowship, Mr. Barden will research and draft a law review article on the role and control of sovereign wealth funds in international law. A year-end report of a former International Law Fellow, Bryan Johnson, is available online.

A third-year student at New York Law School, Mr. Barden is a member of the New York Law School Foreign Direct Investment International Moot Competition Team. He also provided research assistance in several articles on topics ranging from international investment law to international human rights. Mr. Barden graduated from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and a Minor in Spanish.


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February 29, 2008: New York Law School hosts young legal scholars conference

The Center for International Law and the New York Law School Law Review today hosted the annual Junior International Law Scholars Conference at New York Law School. The full-day conference (held last year at Yale Law School) provides a rigorous forum for pre-tenure international law professors to discuss their scholarship.

Scholars from over 20 law and professional schools -- including the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia, Georgetown University, and Princeton University -- attended this year's conference and discussed a dozen papers, including contributions by Professors Molly Beutz and Tai-Heng Cheng of New York Law School. A lunchtime roundtable also discussed how law professors can play leadership roles in international law through scholarship, fact-finding missions, human rights advocacy, and by providing advice to governments, among other activities.


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August 23, 2007: Center newsletter wins prestigious award

The International Review was awarded the 2007 Gold Award for “Best Edited Organization Newsletter” by the publisher of The Newsletter on Newsletters (NL/NL), which TIME magazine described as "the bible of the [newsletter] industry." NL/NL is the only independent publication serving the needs of the newsletter, electronic, and specialized information industries worldwide. A distinguished panel of judges based its decision on several criteria, including whether the newsletter met the goals and needs of its readers.

The International Review began publication in the spring of 1999. Michael Rhee is the Managing Editor. The first issue was six pages in length. The latest issue (Spring 2007) was 48 pages long. Here are a few things that make our publication noteworthy:

• It is the only academic newsletter published by an ABA-accredited law school that reports on a wide range of contemporary international and comparative law issues. Other similar newsletters specialize only in a particular area of (or a few areas of similar topics within) international law such as human rights and the laws of war, among others;
• Most of our stories are written in plain English, yet still provide information that is legally accurate. This makes the newsletter’s content accessible to non-specialists in international law and even to non-lawyers and the general public. In contrast, other newsletters are often laden with technical and obscure jargon that is largely inaccessible to many groups of readers;
• Our stories try to provide sufficient background so that the reader can place the issues in a broader context. Other publications simply provide straight information (such as how an international tribunal decided a certain case) without any background; and
• A subscription to The International Review is free, and its subscribers include every law professor and administrator in the United States who teaches or has an interest in international and comparative law.

The next issue of The International Review will be distributed in the fall of 2007. Back issues are available on the Center for International Law’s homepage.


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May 4, 2007: Funding for International Law Fellowship

An anonymous donor has funded the International Law Fellowship, which was founded in 2006 and allows its Fellow to provide timely international law memoranda to practitioners, government bodies, civic groups, and international organizations under the supervision of the Center for International Law. The Fellow will receive an honorarium of $300.

Jamie McAleavey, who has completed his second year at New York Law School, has been appointed the International Law Fellow for the 2007-2008 academic year. Mr. McAleavey graduated cum laude from Washington College with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and minor in Philosophy. He is also the recipient of the Felix Jacob Bilgrey ’51 scholarship. Under the supervision of Associate Director Tai-Heng Cheng, Mr. McAleavey will help to develop a theory of odious torts that avoids attributing to an innocent successor government responsibility for crimes against humanity committed by its predecessor genocidal regime. This new theory will present an alternative to the International Court of Justice’s 2006 decision holding Serbia not responsible for Milosevic’s genocidal acts due to insufficient evidence to meet the burden of proof.


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May 2, 2007: Year-end reports from the first International Law Fellow and Network 20/20 Fellows

Bryan Johnson, who is the Center's first International Law Fellow, gives us a year-end report on his activities. The Center's Network 20/20 Fellows, Matthew Abrams and Shahab Ghalambor, also report on their extraordinary fellowship experiences. Highlights include:

• "The administration of New York Law School, and the Center for International Law in particular, should be commended for providing us with this rare opportunity. Too often, our experiences in law school focus solely toward the practice of law.  My fellowship was a truly refreshing chance to contribute to the foundation of all law: public policy . . . My experience as a Fellow on the Iran Project was a stunning example of an experience which has inspired me to faithfully remember our motto: Learn Law, Take Action." (Shahab D. Ghalambor)
• "In addition to the enlightenment that comes with in-depth research and education, I thoroughly enjoyed the level of involvement and access I was granted as a Fellow. . . . I was able to act in several roles—student, teacher, researcher, drafter, and interviewer—and benefit immensely from those experiences." (Matthew B. Abrams)
• “My experience as the International Law Fellow for the Center for International Law at New York Law School has been a diverse, challenging, and rewarding experience that I am both lucky and glad to have been given.  It has improved my writing skills, exposed me to many different areas of international law, allowed me to meet prominent attorneys, government representatives, and other leaders in the international arena, and allowed me to work on a variety of exciting projects for the Center for International Law.” (Bryan S. Johnson)

The International Law Fellowship is a semester-long appointment (with the possibility of reappointment at the end of each semester) for a New York Law School student. The Fellow provides timely international law memoranda to practitioners, government bodies, civic groups, and international organizations.

Network 20/20 Fellowships provide an opportunity for New York Law School students to work directly with Network 20/20, a global security think tank. For more information on all of these fellowships, please contact Professor Tai-Heng Cheng.


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April 19, 2007: Associate Director Tai-Heng Cheng quoted in Inter Press News Agency article

Tai-Heng Cheng was quoted in an Inter Press News Agency article concerning the recent U.S.-Australia agreement to ship Cubans and Haitians at Guantanamo Bay to Australia in exchange for Australia shipping Burmese and Sri Lankans held at Nauru. Established in 1964, and with offices at the UN in New York, IPS describes itself as one of “civil society's leading news agencies."

Here is an excerpt: "This latest arrangement shows the tremendous pressure that the international system has now come under to balance the pressing needs of refugees with the genuine sovereign interests of states, Cheng added. 'The global community needs to seriously reconsider how we might coordinate our efforts to protect refugees without unduly burdening states.'"

Click here to read the complete article in PDF format.


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February 15, 2007: Policy Recommendations on Iran

The Iran Project, in collaboration with Network 20/20, has released its long-awaited report. (See the September 11, 2006, news item for more background information.) Long-term policy recommendations to the U.S. government, Congress, and civil society are set out on pages 20-23.

In the summer of 2006, Matthew Abrams and Shahab Ghalambor, Network 20/20 Fellows at the Center for International Law, carried out research on Iran.  In November 2006, Prof. Tai-Heng Cheng, Associate Director of the Center for International Law, Mr. Ghalambor, and several Network 20/20 members collectively conducted over fifty interviews over two fact finding missions to Iran. They met with, inter alia, Masoumeh Ebtekar, who was the first female vice president in Iran (from 1997-2005) and also spokesperson for the hostage takers in 1979.

At the separate requests of the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs and several ambassadors from countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, Prof. Cheng presented to them his policy proposals on Iran and the Middle East.

In conjunction with the release of the report, the Center for International Law will convene a panel called "Iran: What Next?" on March 21, 2007 from 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm in the Wellington Center.


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January 12, 2007: Dream Speech project

The Center for International Law has partnered with Network 20/20 on a project sponsored by the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., called the Dream Speech.  Five students associated with the Center have drafted foreign policy speeches that they would like to see the new President deliver at his or her inauguration in January 2009. New America plans to announce the project to the media before the 2007 State of the Union Address to signal the concerns of Americans. More releases are planned in the run up to the election to contribute, and perhaps, even to shape the public debate about what Americans want from a President.

Notably, one of the student associates on this project, Patrick Romero, served as a staff sergeant in Iraq from 2004-2005, and was decorated for his service.

The speeches submitted by New York Law School students are now online. Please note that the views expressed in these speeeches are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for International Law or New York Law School.


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September 22, 2006: Center for International Law in New York Law Journal (Read the PDF article)

The New York Law Journal
Next Stop: Iran (excerpts)

The Iran Project is a collaboration between New York Law's Center for International Law and Network 20/20, a New York-based nonprofit organization of 200 young workers in 30 professions in the United States . . . The project's goal is to establish collegial ties between the private sectors of the two countries. The program seeks to give young lawyers and other early-career professionals an understanding of foreign cultures and issues as well as train them in the art of international diplomacy . . .

"So much of the Iran question as it is framed today involves the nuclear question," said Tai-Heng Cheng, another member of the delegation who is Associate Professor of Law at New York Law School and Associate Director of that school's Center for International Law. "What we would like to do with this project is to reframe the question. We would like to change the story from one of conflict to a story of cooperation."

More information concering the Iran Project is available in the Projects section of the Center for International Law's homepage.


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September 11, 2006: Center for International Law in The National Law Journal