International Law Faculty In the News
Social-media platforms are destroying evidence of war crimes (9/21/2020 – The Economist)
Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, explains why social media companies’ use of algorithms to remove content can hinder investigations into incidents
Celebrating the 2020 International Law Certificate Awardees
Professors Laurel E. Fletcher and Katerina Linos, faculty co-directors of the Miller Institute, are pleased to announce the JD and LLM graduating students who have earned the 2020 Certificate of Specialization in International Law.
Each year the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law recognizes students who have contributed to international law scholarship and practice at Berkeley Law by completing the requirements for the Certificate of Specialization in International Law. The names of the 2020 International Law Certificate honorees achieving this distinction can be found below.
To earn the International Law Certificate, students must take the foundational International Law course, complete an additional nine units of international or comparative law classes, and write a substantive original research thesis on a topic in the field.
Please join us along with the International and Comparative Law faculty and Dean Chemerinsky in celebrating the inspiring accomplishment of these 30 students:
2020 International Law Certificate Awardees
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LLM Students Nora Althenyan |
JD Students Alec Albright |
Saira Mohamed Wins Annual Berlin Award
Professor Saira Mohamed is among the 22 winners of the annual Berlin Prize, a semester-long residential fellowship given to top scholars, writers, composers, and artists from the United States. The Berlin Prize – awarded by the American Academy in Berlin – provides recipients with the time and resources to step back from their daily obligations to engage in academic and artistic projects they might otherwise not pursue.
Professor Mohamed will explore the military obligation to disobey illegal orders, focusing on the ways in which the law and cultural forces outside the law impede American service members’ capacity to identify and disobey orders to commit war crimes, and on the harms experienced by those subject to such orders.
Laurel Fletcher Talks about Transitional Justice Issues on Podcast
Professor Laurel Fletcher appeared on the April 1st edition of the Justice Visions podcast to discuss the evolution of the field of transitional justice, criminal accountability, and using transitional justice as a banner to address systemic injustices. Listen to the podcast here.
New Human Rights Publication from Alexa Koenig
Alexa Koenig‘s new book, co-edited with Daragh Murray (University of Essex) and Sam Dubberley (Amnesty International), Digital Witness: Using Open Source Information for Human Rights Investigation, Documentation and Accountability (Oxford U. Press) was published in January 2020. The book has hit the number one spot for new releases in criminal evidence on Amazon, and is already sold out; more copies are being printed just in time for the US release. Research for the book was partially funded by the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law.
The first book is the first of its kind to teach the methods and best-practice of open source research, and offers a comprehensive range of topics, including the discovery and preservation of data, and ethical considerations, to provide readers with the cutting-edge skills needed to work in an increasingly digitized and information-saturated environment
Prince Zeid Raad Al Hussein, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, writes that Digital Witness “will fast become the standard text for anyone interested in human rights, the collection of evidence in the digital age, and the prosecution of those who perpetrate gross human rights violations.” And David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, writes that the book “demonstrates, as no other volume has done, how the digital age has opened up vast new opportunities for accountability,” becoming a “key source for open source investigators–and for students and professionals aiming to make visible what previously has only been hidden.”
