Internationalism

The Law School’s commitment to comparative and international legal studies is reflected in the worldwide reputation of our faculty and the global perspective that faculty members bring to their teaching and scholarship, regardless of their fields of specialization.

Our faculty teach at prominent institutions worldwide and engage in notable research and activities that regularly take them overseas. Many have also served in the federal government and as advisers to international organizations and foreign governments. Michigan students are exposed to an international and comparative perspective throughout the Law School curriculum, not just in classes that traditionally and expertly focus on these issues—the underlying philosophy being that a great law school owes its students a cosmopolitan legal education. Whether it is a course or seminar on corporate law, financial institutions, tax law, family law, or intellectual property, to name a few, the professor will examine the legal issues in a global context.

Michigan has long been one of the world’s strongest law schools in international law. The curriculum spans the entire spectrum from international finance (Laura Beny, Michael Barr) to international trade (Donald Regan), international environmental law (Edward Parson), international humanitarian law and terrorism (Steven Ratner), international tax including the LL.M. Program in International Tax Law directed by Reuven Avi-Yonah, and the myriad aspects of human rights (Catharine MacKinnon, Brian Simpson and Monica Hakimi) as well as the Program in Refugee and Asylum Law established by James Hathaway and currently directed by Penelope Mathew. The offerings in international law are further enriched by such widely respected scholars as Christine Chinkin (London School of Economics), Christopher McCrudden (Oxford University), and Judge Bruno Simma (International Court of Justice) who return every year to teach at Michigan Law.

The Law School also annually welcomes visiting faculty members from other outstanding overseas law schools and government entities such as Tokyo University, Kyoto University, Oxford University, University of Tel-Aviv, European University Institute, Humboldt University of Berlin, Australian National University, the University of Natal, the South African Constitutional Court, the European Commission, and the European Court of Justice. In recent and future years, visiting faculty members include Dino Kritsiotis (University of Nottingham, UK), Yuval Shany (Hebrew University, Israel), and Susanne Baer (Humboldt University Berlin, Germany).

Michigan is also internationally respected as a center for comparative law studies, as illustrated by the faculty specializations and, for example, by the American Journal of Comparative Law which was first published at Michigan in 1952. Since 2005, Mathias Reimann, who, among other things, teaches jurisdiction and choice of law, is the co-editor of this globally operating, peer-reviewed journal which ranks among the top three comparative law journals of the world. In addition, Michigan faculty members have unparalleled expertise in the laws of some of today’s largest economies: Nicholas Howson (People’s Republic of China), Vikramaditya Khanna (India) and Mark West (Japan). Professor West is also the director of the Japanese Legal Studies Program, and Professor Howson leads the Law School’s many opportunities in Chinese Legal Studies. Furthermore, European legal studies were pioneered in U.S. law schools by esteemed Michigan Law emeritus professor Eric Stein; the University now has a European Commission funded European Union Center of Excellence, and its founding director Daniel Halberstam, who is the only U.S. scholar to have worked at both the United States Supreme Court and the European Court of Justice, directs the Law School’s European Legal Studies Program.

Michigan was the first top law school in the United States to make transnational law mandatory for all J.D. students. In addition, an International Transactions Clinic teaches skills that are critically important to students’ professional development as they enter into practice areas that involve cross-border transactions. (For a more complete overview of Michigan Law’s curriculum, please visit the Curriculum Interest Areas where links lead to detailed course  descriptions and faculty biographies.)

Beyond curricular offerings, a great variety of symposia, speakers, workshops, pro bono projects, externships, and student organization activities reflects a strong institutional interest in global affairs. Major conferences are regularly organized by student groups and journals, and by faculty, on human rights, international trade, international tax, and corporate governance in transitional economies. These conferences, as well as a weekly international law workshop, bring dozens of internationally prominent practitioners and scholars to Ann Arbor. In recent years they have included a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Legal Adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State, members of the European Court of Justice, the Japanese Supreme Court, the Israeli Supreme Court, the Appellate Body of the WTO, and the International Court of Justice, the General Counsel of Microsoft, and the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.

Many of our J.D. students, both U.S. and international, have strong interest in the international arena. This is reflected in the opportunities described above, in the significant numbers who have lived, studied and worked abroad prior to attending law school, and in the activities of student organizations, such as the International Law Society and the Michigan Journal of International Law, a student-run journal that has established itself as one of the finest international law publications in the United States. Among the many internships available to Michigan students around the world, the Law School has successfully nominated students to traineeships at the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Justice, and J.D. students avail themselves of externship opportunities in Geneva and South Africa or semester study abroad opportunities.

The University of Michigan is one of the most global universities in the nation—not only does it attract the greatest number of international students in the United States, but faculty in numerous departments focus on international aspects of their work. Apart from the Law School, these include scholars in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the Steven Ross School of Business and its William Davidson Institute, and the School of Public Health. The International Institute, headed by Professor Mark Tessler, and the Institute for the Humanities, headed by Professor Daniel Herwitz, help coordinate numerous activities and lectures around the campus.