Rusk Center anchors law school’s top 20 international law ranking

For the seventh time in recent years, U.S. News & World Report has counted the School of Law’s international law program among the top 20 or so in the country. (Earlier this spring, the school was ranked 18th.)

This achievement is due in no small part to the support and hard work of everyone affiliated with the approximately 45-year-old Dean Rusk International Law Center, including its leadership team of Interim Director Lori A. Ringhand (who also has a Hosch Professorship and a Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professorship) and Faculty Co-directors Diane Marie Amann (the holder of the Woodruff Chair in International Law and a Regents’ Professorship) and Harlan G. Cohen (the Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law).

rusk logoThe work of the Dean Rusk Center also depends on talented students pursuing J.D., M.S.L. and LL.M. degrees. Student editors of the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law led the 2021 conference titled “The Future of Global Healthcare Governance.” The advocates on the school’s Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot and Jessup International Law Moot Court teams posted strong performances. Appellate Litigation Clinic students argued asylum cases before the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Additionally, students participated in the center’s full-semester NATO Externship and Global Externships, while the student-led International Law Society helped with creating community.

As the pandemic stopped most international travel, the center transitioned to virtual formats, hosting academics, practitioners and policymakers from all over the world for forums like “The Law and Logics of Attribution: Constructing the Identity and Responsibility of States and Firms” Conference (organized by Post Professor Melissa J. “MJ” Durkee), workshops and lectures as well as the International Law Colloquium and Consular Series.

The law school’s graduates – who excel as partners in international commercial law firms, as heads of nongovernmental organizations and international organizations, as in-house counsel at leading multinational enterprises and as diplomats and public servants – have tremendously given back through mentoring and other support.

The Dean Rusk International Law Center looks forward to strengthening its initiatives in international, comparative, transnational and foreign relations law and preparing School of Law students to practice in a 21st century globalized legal profession under the direction of its new leader MJ Durkee, who will serve as associate dean for international programs.