Idriss Fofana
Fall 2024-Spring 2025
1 Credit
This writing group focuses on non-western legal traditions in historical or contemporary perspective. Non-western here includes legal systems strongly influenced by traditions other than the common law and the civil law. …
Idriss Fofana
Fall 2024
3 Credits
This course explores the evolution and historical roots of the present-day international legal system from a global perspective. We will trace intellectual trends, institutional developments, and historical conflicts or oppositions that shaped relations between political communities from 1450 C.E. to the 1970s. The objective is to gain insight into why certain foundational aspects of today’s international law, such as the doctrine of sources, the subjects of international law, and self-determination, have assumed their current form. …
William P. Alford
Fall 2024 – Spring 2025; Fall 2023 – Spring 2024; Fall 2022 – Spring 2023
1 credit
Students interested in this writing group are encouraged to inform Professor Alford of their interest at their earliest convenience (ideally, in advance of the October deadline) so as to facilitate planning. …
Mark Wu
Fall 2024; Spring 2023
3 Credits
This course aims to provide students with a broad overview of the problems that confront businesses as they go global and how different forms of law work to address such problems. Through a series of examples, the class will explore the legal and policy implications that arise out of cross-border transactions. How do businesses navigate markets that operate very differently than their own home market? We explore how treaties, national laws, and informal norms shape and constrain business decisions. Among the topics to be explored are how businesses deal with issues such as corporate social responsibility, intellectual property protection, corruption, privacy, and enforcement of arbitration awards. This class will focus, in particular, on transactions with Asia, but will draw on examples from other regions as well. …
Tarunabh Khaitan (Visiting Professor)
Fall 2024; Spring 2023
2 credits
This course is a study of constitutional law and politics from a comparative perspective. It has three features that make it distinctive from, and supplementary to, more traditional courses on constitutional law: first, it examines comparative constitutional law primarily through the lens of plurinational and deeply divided societies. One supposed function of constitutions is to enshrine the priority of political and legal mechanisms over violence for resolving societal disputes. A focus on deeply divided societies will allow us to examine this function closely. We will, therefore, draw our examples not only from constitutionally influential jurisdictions (such as United States, United Kingdom and Germany), but also from constitutions of plurinational or deeply divided societies (such as South Africa, Israel, and India). The course may also include material from jurisdictions firmly outside the ‘canon’ of comparative constitutional law, such as China, Iran, Australia, Thailand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Afghanistan, and the Netherlands. …
William P. Alford, Idriss Fofana
Past Instructors: William P. Alford, Intisar Rabb, Idriss Fofana (Fall 2023)
Fall 2024; Fall 2023
2 Credits
This workshop will engage key questions in comparative law, using as focal points the study of African and Chinese and other Asian legal systems (including Islamic law), and legal history. Students will read examples of influential scholarship in each field both for their importance and as a vehicle for thinking about methodological issues in comparative work in general. Students will also have the opportunity to engage several leading scholars in each field, as well as scholars earlier in their career, who will present works-in-progress. Students considering taking the Workshop should attend the first class even if not formally enrolled. …
William P. Alford, Steven Wang
Fall 2024
2 credits
This seminar will focus on the myriad of legal and related policy questions that are central to the U.S.-P.R.C. relationship. Earlier iterations of this class have addressed issues regarding trade, human rights, technology transfer, corporate governance, climate change, corruption, foreign direct and portfolio investment, disability, Taiwan, competing visions of law and development (as played out in Africa), and the role of lawyers. We anticipate covering a similar set of topics next fall, and may also delve into AI, sanctions, and law of the sea, among other topics. …
