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Who we are

On June 21st, 2012, a select number of leading law schools from all over the world created the Law Schools Global League (LSGL)

Continente

5 Continents

Countries

24 Countries

Members

32 Members

  • About

    Goals

    • Fostering academic debate on the impact of globalized law, and creating a research agenda for this purpose.
    • Encouraging academic debate on the impact of globalized legal education, and taking practical initiatives to develop new methodologies, courses, programs and teaching materials.
    • Stimulating and facilitating cooperation in education and research among its members.
    • Engaging in debate with stakeholders in all fields of legal practice so as to stimulate and facilitate international cooperation among legal practitioners.
    Goals
  • About

    Activities

    The LSGL seeks to stimulate academic debate as well as cooperation in both education and research concerning the globalization of law. Serving as a platform for sharing knowledge, the LSGL aspires to contribute to the debate on the globalization of law and its implications on legal education, research and practice.

    The LSGL brings together law schools that share a commitment not only to the globalization of law, but also to integrating global law in their teaching and research.

    Every year, the League organizes a number of activities, including conferences and a summer school centered on the theme of law and globalization, besides setting up joint-research and joint-teaching activities.

    Activities
  • About

    Philosophy

    The LSGL perceives globalization, i.e. the growing interdependency and connectedness of the world, as a process that is fundamentally changing law, in the sense that it;

    • Enables a body of ‘global law’, i.e. law that transcends the boundaries of the positive laws of national legal orders, to be conceived and to emerge (even if that global law might not actually be in force.
    • Induces a greater degree of interplay between legal systems within and among regions throughout the world, often leading to convergence.
    • Challenges the classical paradigm of national law and the monopoly of the nation-State over the process of lawmaking and law enforcement.
    • Causes the shift from predominating monism in legal education and research toward increased pluralism, in respect of legal systems, interdisciplinarity, and methodology.
    Philosophy
  • About

    Philosophy (II)

    The LSGL aims to contribute to the coherent and feasible study of global law, which;

    • Helps to understand how this body of global law exerts a significant influence on and over sub-national, national, regional or international legal orders.
    • Helps to understand how new global and local actors shape law and the different forms which law can take.
    • Explores the possibilities that the comparison and convergence of legal systems can offer so as to enhance justice and international cooperation in and between different regions throughout the world.
    • Helps to define a new balance between global law, local law and legal scholarship.

    The League’s agenda is broad and inclusive, covering all fields of law where globalization and interdependency are an issue.

    Philosophy (II)
mission
01

The Law School Global League brings together law schools that share a commitment to the globalization of law and to integrating global law in their teaching and research.

mission
02

The purpose of the league is to promote legal education and scholarly research in relation to the globalization of law by:

  • Fostering academic debate on the impact of globalization on law and setting a research agenda for this;
  • Fostering academic debate on the impact of globalization on legal education and taking practical initiatives for the development of new methodologies, courses, programs, and teaching materials;
  • Stimulating and facilitating cooperation in education and research among its members;
  • Engaging in a debate with stakeholders in all fields of legal practice, to stimulate and facilitate international cooperation and mobility of legal practitioners.
mission
03

The League perceives globalization, i.e. the growing interdependency and connectedness of the world, as a process that is fundamentally changing law, in the sense that it:

  • Enables a body of ‘global law’, i.e. law that transcends the boundaries of the positive laws of national legal orders, to be conceived of and to emerge (even if that global law might not actually be in force);
  • Induces a greater degree of interplay between legal systems within and among regions in the world, often leading to convergence;
  • Challenges the classical paradigm of national law and the monopoly of the nation-State over the process of lawmaking and law enforcement;
  • Causes the shift from a predominance of monism in legal education and research toward increased pluralism, in respect of legal systems, interdisciplinarity, and methodology.
mission
04

The League aims to contribute to a coherent and viable study of global law, which:

  • Helps to understand how this body of global law exerts a significant influence on sub-national, national, regional or international legal orders;
  • Helps to understand how new global and local actors shape law and the different forms which law can take;
  • Explores the possibilities which the comparison and convergence of legal systems can offer to enhance justice and international cooperation in and between different regions of the world;
  • Helps to define a new balance between global law and legal scholarship and local law.
mission
05

The League’s agenda is broad and inclusive, covering all fields of law where globalization and interdependency are an issue.

Presidency

The LSGL General Assembly elects the President/s for a two-year mandate. The current Presidency is held by Soledad Atienza, the Dean of the IE Law School, Spain, and James Speta, Professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, USA

Soledad Atienza

The LSGL General Assembly elects the President/s for a two-year mandate. The current Presidency is held by the Deans of IE University Law School, Spain and Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, USA. Soledad Atienza is the Dean of IE Law School and has an extensive academic experience and a global vision of legal education. Prior to that, she practiced law at the leading Spanish law firm Pérez-Llorca for five years. She earned her Ph.D. in Social Sciences from IE University and is currently a law professor. Her expertise includes the areas of comparative law and legal teaching methods. Soledad has an Executive MBA degree from IE Business School and a Certificate in European Studies from the European Institute of the University of Saarland in Germany. She was a visiting student at Cornell University in New York and holds a law degree from the CEU San Pablo University in Spain. Soledad Atienza is Co-Chair of the Commission for the Future of Legal Services of the IBA (International Bar Association), and has co-directed the “Blueprint on global legal education”. She is also co-director of the Pérez-Llorca / IE Chair of Business Law and author of the book “Enseñar Derecho. ¿Puede servirnos la experiencia de Estados Unidos?” (“Teaching Law: Can the U.S. experience help us?”), published by Editorial Aranzadi.

James B. Speta

Jim Speta is the Elizabeth Froehling Horner Professor of Law at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. He is currently a member of the Northwestern University Global Council, and he has held a number of leadership positions at the Law School, including Interim Dean, Vice Dean, Senior Associate Dean of International Initiatives, and Senior Associate Dean of Curriculum. In these roles, he has worked on University and Law School strategies for international engagement, including joint programs, exchanges, and research collaborations. His research expertise includes telecommunications and Internet policy, antitrust, administrative law, and market organization. A 1991 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, Speta joined the Northwestern faculty following a one-year visit. He had previously clerked for Judge Harry T. Edwards on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and practiced appellate, telecommunications, and antitrust law with the Chicago firm of Sidley & Austin.

Esra Özcan

Esra Özcan

Esra Özcan is Secretary of the Law Schools Global League. She is a senior administrator committed to the smooth operation and realization of all organizational and developmental issues at Koç University Law School. In her role, she contributes to the internationalization strategy of the Law School to enhance its global presence by planning international academic activities and LLM and PhD programs. She also works on joint programs and conferences. She received outstanding service award delivered by President in 2015. Esra has been involved in the LSGL organization management since 2013 and has taken actively part in the events planning and coordination of the LSGL work progress. She has also been running the League’s administrative tasks as Presidency office representative. She has studied education in Leicester UK, Istanbul Turkey and Madrid, Spain and speaks Turkish, English and Spanish.

Former Presidents

Professor Simon Chesterman

Professor Simon Chesterman

Professor Simon Chesterman is Dean of the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law. He is also Editor of the Asian Journal of International Law. Educated in Melbourne, Beijing, Amsterdam, and Oxford, Professor Chesterman’s teaching experience includes periods at the Universities of Melbourne, Oxford, Southampton, Columbia, and Sciences Po. From 2006-2011, he was Global Professor and Director of the New York University School of Law Singapore Programme.Prior to joining NYU, he was a Senior Associate at the International Peace Academy and Director of UN Relations at the International Crisis Group in New York. He has previously worked for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Yugoslavia and interned at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Professor Chesterman is the author or editor of seventeen books, including Law and Practice of the United Nations (with Ian Johnstone and David M. Malone, OUP, 2016); One Nation Under Surveillance (OUP, 2011); You, The People (OUP, 2004); and Just War or Just Peace? (OUP, 2001). He is a recognized authority on international law, whose work has opened up new areas of research on conceptions of public authority – including the rules and institutions of global governance, state-building and post-conflict reconstruction, the changing role of intelligence agencies, and the emerging role of artificial intelligence and big data. He also writes on legal education and higher education more generally.

Professor Martin Hogg

Professor Martin Hogg

Following two years qualifying as a Solicitor with Dundas & Wilson CS in Edinburgh, Martin Hogg was appointed as a Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Edinburgh in 1995. In 2004 he was appointed Senior Lecturer, and in 2013 was appointed to a Chair in the Law of Obligations. He is a (non-practising) member of the Faculty of Advocates (the Scottish Bar).

Professor Hogg has previously held office as Associate Dean of the Faculty of Law, as well as Director of Undergraduate Studies, Director of Teaching, Deputy Director of Research, and Convener of the Board of Studies. He took office as Deputy Head of the Law School in 2014, and became Head of School and Dean of Law in 2017.

Amnon Lehavi

Amnon Lehavi

Prof. Amnon Lehavi (J.S.D, Yale) is Dean and Atara Kaufman Professor of Real Estate, Radzyner Law School. Prof. Lehavi serves as academic director of the Gazit-Globe Real Estate Institute.

Prof. Lehavi is a leading authority on property, real estate, land use controls, international economic law, and law and globalization. He is the author of Property law in a Globalizing World (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2018) and The Construction of Property: Norms, Institutions, Challenges (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and editor of 100 Years of Zoning and the Future of Cities (Springer, 2018), Private Communities and Urban Governance: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives (Springer, 2016) and Gated Communities (Nevo Press, 2010). Prof. Lehavi has published extensively in top journals, including the Columbia Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Texas Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Minnesota Law Review, Law and Social Inquiry, Yale Journal of International Law, and Chicago Journal of International Law. He won numerous prizes, including the 2007 Tzeltner Award for an outstanding young scholar, and the 2008, 2010, and 2014 IDC Award for excellence in scholarship. Prof. Lehavi served as a visiting professor at the University of Toronto (2010), University of California, Berkeley (2013-2014), and the 2016 Global Law Visiting Chair at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. He also served as chairperson of the Israeli Association of Private Law (2012-2013) and chairperson of the Human Rights Working Group at the Law Schools Global League (2016).

Gonçalo Matias

Gonçalo Matias

Professor of the Faculty of Law of the Portuguese Catholic University, where he completed his first degree, his Master’s degree, and his doctorate. He is the Dean of the Católica Global School of Law.

He is the Director of Studies and member of the Executive Committee and the Board of Directors of the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation.

He carried out research as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University Law School. He is particularly involved in the areas of Regulatory, Administrative, Constitutional and International Law. He was an invited professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

He was an Adviser for Legal and Constitutional Affairs for the Civil House of the President of the Republic between 2008 and 2014 and has been a consultant for the same Civil House since 2014. He was Director of the Migration Observatory.

He was Secretary of State for Administrative Modernization of the 20th Constitutional Government.

He is a lawyer and has been registered at the Portuguese Bar Association since 2005, and a legal consultant, especially in the areas of Public Law. He is a member of UIA – Union International des Avocats.

Bertil Emrah Oder

Bertil Emrah Oder

Bertil Emrah Oder is the Dean and Professor of Constitutional Law at Koç University Law School, received her PhD in both public and private law from University of Cologne (Germany). Dr. Oder’s research focuses on comparative constitutional law, European Union law and international human rights law. She is a full member of the Science Academy and has national and international awards for her scholarly achievements. She has been also selected as Henry Morris Lecturer of International and Comparative Law in 2012 by Chicago-Kent College of Law. She has served as international consultant of UN Women and Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and published four books, dozens of articles, editorials and book chapters on various subjects in public law with focus on human rights and judicial review. Fluent in English, German and Turkish, Dr. Oder holds also LLB and MA/LLM degrees from the University of Istanbul and Marmara University (Turkey).

Javier de Cendra

Javier de Cendra

Javier de Cendra is Dean of IE Law School. He is also Honorary Senior Research fellow at University College London Faculty of Law, Honorary Senior Lecturer at UCL Energy Institute, visiting profesor at University of KU Leuven and University of Malta, legal expert at the Malta Forum on Legal Issues of Adaptation to Climate Change, member of the Scientific Committee of Fondazione Scienza y Fede – STOQ, within the Pontifical Council for Culture, and member of various think tanks and research centres in Spain and abroad.

Javier´s fields of expertise span across environmental and energy law, with a particular focus on climate change. Javier has engaged intensively in research and consultancy on climate change and energy law at national and EU level. Javier has published three books and many academic articles in journals such as the Yearbook of International Environmental Law, the Journal of Environmental Law, Climate Law, Climate Policy, the Journal of European Consumer Law, and RECIEL; he in the editorial board of Climate Carbon Law Review and of European Journal of Consumer Law.

Randall Lesaffer

(°Bruges, Belgium 1968) studied law as well as history at the universities of Ghent and Leuven. In 1998, he obtained his PhD at the Faculty of Law of the latter university. Since 1999, he is professor of legal history at Tilburg University, where he also served as dean of Tilburg Law School from 2008 to 2012. He is currently director of studies of the LLB Global Law. Lesaffer is also part-time professor of international and European legal history at the University of Leuven, visiting professor at the Catolica Global Law School in Lisbon and visiting fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge.

Randall Lesaffer’s scholarly work focuses on the history of international law, in particularly the European Early Modern Age. He is the general editor of The Cambridge History of International Law, editor-in-chief of Oxford Historical Treaties online, editor-in-chief of the book series Studies in the History of International Law (Brill/Nijhoff) and is an editor of the Journal of the History of International Law and of the Global Law Series (Cambridge UP). Since 2015, he is president of the Grotiana Foundation. His major research project now is a book on the political history of international in the early 1990s.

Oscar Vilhena

Oscar Vilhena

Oscar Vilhena Vieira is the Dean of the School of Law of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV/SP), where he teaches Constitutional Law, Human Rights, and Law and Development. He has a B.A. in law from the Catholic University of Sao Paulo; a LL.M. from Columbia University in New York; a M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Sao Paulo, and made his post-doctoral studies at the Centre for Brazilian Studies, at Oxford University. Oscar Vilhena Vieira was legal adviser for the Center for the Studies of Violence of the University of Sao Paulo (1990-1996) and executive secretary of the Teotonio Vilela Commission for Human Rights (1989-1991). He served as state attorney for Sao Paulo (1993-2003) and as executive secretary of the United Nations Latin American Institute in Brazil (1997-2002). In 2000 he founded and directed Conectas Human Rights and the Pro Bono Institute. He has written several books and academic articles on constitutional law, human rights and law and development. Oscar is member of several civil society organizations and academic programs advisory boards, including OSI – Human Rights board, Pro Bono Institute, ANDI (National Agency for the Rights of Children), Law School´s Global League (former president). Oscar Vieira has also being an active pro bono lawyer in several human rights cases at the Brazilian Supreme Court.

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