SHAPING COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL LAW FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY AND A HALF

Founded in 1858, Columbia Law School, now in its 151st year, offers a legacy of achievement, innovation, and leadership that has shaped national and world events and continues to drive the advancement of law in a global society.

Today, our curriculum offers students an extraordinary selection of international and comparative law courses of any U.S. law school. The curriculum spans public, private, and comparative international law and prepares students to navigate the intersection of public and private law, with a strong focus on established and emerging governing bodies at both regional and global levels.

Many courses are interdisciplinary, combining forces with the schools of Columbia University. Other opportunities include externships made possible through our relationship with New York City, as well as semester-abroad and double-degree programs.

In a typical year, students can choose from more than 70 courses, clinics, and seminars, some of which are listed below. For a full listing, please visit our online curriculum guide.

THE CURRICULUM: UNPARALLELED IN BREADTH AND DEPTH

Global Constitutionalism
This course compares a variety of proposals aimed to promote world order, from traditional concepts of the balance of power among independent states to contemporary models of compliance with international law, global governance networks, and global democratization. The course assesses the merits and limitations of these visions of world order and explores the underlying principles of international ethics and institutional design that characterize efforts to promote global rules.

International and Comparative Criminal Law
This course introduces students to international criminal law, including the problems of jurisdiction, extradition, and the role of international criminal courts. Issues of criminal responsibility for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity are analyzed, and the philosophical and legal foundations of international criminal liability are explored.

Terror and Consent
The world didn't change on September 11, 2001. The ensuing Wars on Terror are the successor conflict to the Long War of the 20th century that ended in 1990. The Wars on Terror embrace three distinct but related struggles: to prevent market state terrorism, protect against gross diminution of human conditions, and preempt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The outcome of these wars will determine whether the new emerging constitutional order of the market state will be composed of states of consent or states of terror.

Transnational Litigation and Arbitration
This course equips students to make strategic decisions in the structuring of dispute resolutions involving international transactions. The first part focuses on access to U.S. courts by foreign litigants, while the second part examines the procedural aspects of international commercial arbitration and the relationship between arbitral tribunals and courts.

Seminar: Labor Rights in a Global Economy
Who are the winners and losers in the global economy? What is the relationship between labor rights and economic development? Can we design regulatory institutions to enhance democracy, equality, and compliance with labor rights at the domestic, regional, and international levels? Students explore these questions through a variety of topics, including comparative models of labor law labor rights and trading systems; multinational corporations and codes of conduct; and cross-border networks of labor migration and trafficking.

REGIONAL FOCUS
Students who wish to concentrate their study on a particular country or region may take advantage of courses that provide in-depth focus, including:

• African Law and Development
• European Union Law and Institutions
• European Corporate Law & Securities Regulation
• International Business Transactions in Latin America
• Japanese Law and Legal Institutions
• Law in Emerging Markets: Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States
• Law and Legal Institutions in China

COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL LAW FACULTY

The foundation of Columbia Law School's reputation is our distinguished faculty. While we have provided a list of acknowledged leaders below, the entire faculty is attuned to the legal dimensions of globalization.

Mark Barenberg
Professor of Law

George A. Bermann
Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law; Walter Gellhorn Professor of Law; Director, European Legal Studies Center

Philip C. Bobbitt
Herbert Wechsler Professor of Jurisprudence

Christina Duffy Burnett
Associate Professor

Sarah H. Cleveland
Louis Henkin Professor of Human and Constitutional Rights; Co-director, Human Rights Institute

Kimberle Williams Crenshaw
Professor of Law

Lori Fisler Damrosch
Henry L. Moses Professor of International Law and Organization

Michael W. Doyle
Harold Brown Professor of International and Public Affairs, of Law, and of Political Science

Harold S.H. Edgar
Julius Silver Professor in Law, Science, and Technology

George P. Fletcher
Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence

Merritt B. Fox
Michael E. Patterson Professor of Law; NASDAQ Professor for Law and Economics of Capital Markets

Katherine M. Franke
Professor of Law; Director, Gender and Sexuality Law Program

Richard N. Gardner
Professor of Law and International Organization

Alejandro M. Garro
Adjunct Professor of Law; Senior Research Scholar, Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law

Philip Genty
Clinical Professor of Law; Director, First-year Legal Practice Workshop and Moot Court Program

Michael B. Gerrard
Professor of Professional Practice

Ronald J. Gilson
Marc and Eva Stern Professor of Law and Business

Jane C. Ginsburg
Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law; Co-director, Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts

Zohar Goshen
Professor of Law

Jack Greenberg
Alphonse Fletcher Professor of Law

Michael A. Heller
Lawrence A. Wien Professor of Real Estate Law

Avery W. Katz
Vice Dean; Milton Handler Professor of Law; and Albert E. Cinelli Enterprise Professor of Law

Benjamin L. Liebman
Professor of Law; Director, Center for Chinese Legal Studies

Lance Liebman
William S. Beinecke Professor of Law; Director, the Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law

Petros C. Mavroidis
Edwin B. Parker Professor of Foreign & Comparative Law

Curtis J. Milhaupt
Fuyo Professor of Japanese Law; Professor of Comparative Corporate Law; Director, Center for Japanese Legal Studies

Katharina Pistor
Professor of Law

Andrzej Rapaczynski
Daniel G. Ross Professor of Law

Joseph Raz
Professor of Law

Peter Rosenblum
Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein Associate Clinical Professor in Human Rights; Co-director, Human Rights Institute

Charles F. Sabel
Maurice T. Moore Professor of Law

Robert E. Scott
Alfred McCormack Professor of Law

Hans Smit
Stanley H. Fuld Professor of Law

Peter L. Strauss
Betts Professor of Law

Kendall Thomas
Nash Professor of Law; Co-director of the Center for the Study of Law and Culture

Matthew Waxman
Associate Professor of Law

Timothy Wu
Professor of Law