About the Center

The Center for International Law and Justice (CILJ) at Florida A&M College of Law (FAMU COL) was established on September 3, 2008. CILJ was created at the behest of Dean Leroy Pernell of FAMU COL and is directed by Dr. Jeremy I. Levitt, Associate Dean for International Programs and Distinguished Professor of International Law. It seeks to develop scholarly, educational, and practice-orientated activities for students and faculty. CILJ endeavors to be the nation's leading center of excellence in research, training and advocacy in the international and comparative law of developing nations.

An important aim of CILJ is to support and complement Florida A&M University's (FAMU) international mission by: (1) cultivating scholarly interest, discourse, debate, and research in international and comparative law among students and scholars at the COL, FAMU, general public, and centers of excellence throughout the world; (2) Strengthening and expanding the university's international presence in the developing world, and promote and engage in activities that facilitate multi-disciplinary and comparative research within and outside of the University.

Director of CILJ

Dr. Jeremy I. Levitt, Distinguished Professor of International Law and Associate Dean for International Programs.

• Ph.D., University of Cambridge, St. John's College
• J.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
• B.A., Arizona State University

Dr. Levitt is a public international lawyer, political scientist, historian, and Africanist with expertise and publications in the law of the use of force, humanitarian law, human rights law, transitional justice, international organizations, democratization, African politics, state dynamics and regional collective security. He is also an expert in African-American history, politics and Diaspora studies. Dr. Levitt is a scholar-practitioner who has demonstrated a talent for teaching, passion for human rights advocacy, zeal for legal and multidisciplinary scholarship and strong commitment to public service.

Dr. Levitt is currently the head of the International Technical Advisory Committee of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He previously served as the Senior Legal Consultant to the Principal Defender's Office at the Special Court for Sierra Leone and was the Special Assistant to the Managing Director for Global Human and Social Development at the World Bank Group in Washington, D.C.

The CILJ faculty is conducting cutting-edge research in a variety of areas. Professor Barbara Bernier is conducting research on the legal, political, moral and economic complexities of bio-fuel development in the Caribbean for a forthcoming article tentatively titled, "The Sugar Belt: Redefining "Extractive" Industry In the Era of Biofuel Development", which will primarily focus on legal efficacy of bio-fuel development in the Caribbean.

Professor Patricia Broussard is conducting research on the inability of the domestic, regional and international law system to halt and effectively respond to the rape pandemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as critique what remedies are available, if any, to rape victims.

Jeremy Levitt, Associate Dean and Professor of International Law, is currently conducting research on the legality of power-sharing arrangements in Africa in a forthcoming book that will be published by Cambridge University Press, and in a separate work examining the legality of the 2006 Ethiopian intervention in Somalia.

In the summer of 2008, Kenneth Nunn, Associate Dean and Professor of Law, conducted research in Egypt (KMT) Kemetic approaches to law and legal institutions, and is writing an article titled "Truth and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa - A Pan-Africanist Perspective", which addresses the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the current state of human rights in South Africa.

In the summer of 2008, Professor Omar Saleem taught two law courses at the Royal University of Law and Economics in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, one of the country's finest universities. In addition, he conducted research for a forthcoming article comparing the criminal laws and procedures in the United States, Cambodia, and China.

Professor Jeremy I. Levitt

ILLEGAL PEACE?: AN INQUIRY INTO THE LEGALITY OF POWER-SHARING WITH AFRICAN WARLORDS AND REBELS (Forthcoming: Cambridge University Press, UK: 2009)

HURRICANE KATRINA: AMERICA'S UNNATURAL DISASTER, (eds. With Matthew C. Whitaker) (University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln: 2009)

Henry J. Richardson, III (center), author of The Origins of African-American Interests in International Law and Temple University Beasley School of Law Professor, poses with Dean Leroy Pernell (left) and Associate Dean Jeremy Levitt (right). Richardson was the featured lecturer at 2008 Annual Lecture on Human Rights and Global Justice, held on October 14, 2008.

"Jack Johnson", ICONS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN SPORTS, in Matthew C. Whitaker (eds.) Vol. 1 (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008).

"The Three Most Important Features of My Country's Legal System that Others Should Understand: Reflections from an African-American Legal Academician", in Learning From Each Other: Enriching the Law School Curriculum in an Interrelated World, 1st International Association of Law Schools Proceedings, 349-353, (2007).

"Paving the Way: Africa and the Future of International Criminal Law", 100 American Society of International Law Proceedings, (2007).

Professor Barbara Brenier

Unholy Troika: Gender, Race and Religiosity in the 2008 Presidential Contest, Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy, Vol. 15 No. 2 (August 2008)

Professor Patricia Broussard

Female Genital Mutilation: Exploring Strategies for Ending Ritualized Torture; Shaming, Blaming, and Utilizing the Convention Against Torture, Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy, Vol. 15 No. 1 (January, 2008); 15 Duke J. Gender L. & Pol'y 19

Professor Kenneth Nunn

Associate Editor for Law and Society, MACMILLAN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RACE AND RACISM (Thomson Pub.,2007).

"'Still Up On the Roof': Race, Victimology and the Response to Hurricane Katrina," in HURRICANE KATRINA: AMERICA'S UNNATURAL DISASTER (Jeremy I. Levitt & Matthew C. Whitaker, eds.) (Univ. of Nebraska Press, forthcoming 2008).

The CILJ is developing a range of research-related and advocacy-based activities that forge new scholarship on cutting-edge issues facing the developing world including its intersections with the West. In 2009 it will launch a new publication titled the Yearbook on International and Comparative Law in the Developing World (YICLDW) that will focus exclusively on Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East and be peer reviewed using external editors of international repute, internal editors and student assistance.