Prof. George Bermann

On Monday, Feb. 6, George A. Bermann, Gellhorn Professor of Law and Jean Monnet Professor of European Union Law at Columbia Law School, will give a public lecture titled "American Exceptionalism in International Commercial Arbitration." The talk will begin at 2:30 pm in the Millhiser Moot Court Room, Sydney Lewis Hall.

Prof. Bermann serves as an international arbitrator in diverse range of fields, including construction, distributorship and franchise, corporate acquisition, insurance, antitrust, securities, general contract, environment, agency and partnership, intellectual property, employment, energy, banking and finance, joint ventures, pharmaceutical, real estate, and transport.  He is director of the American Arbitration Association and president of the International Academy of Comparative Law.

Prof. Bermann also is the Chief Reporter, American Law Institute, Restatement (Third) of the U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration, and serves frequently as an expert witness in U.S. courts, international arbitral tribunals and courts abroad. He holds a JD from Yale as well as an LLM from Columbia Law School.

Phil Clark

Dr.  Clark is the co-founder and convener of Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) at the University of Oxford. His research addresses the history and politics of the African Great Lakes, focusing on the causes of and responses to mass violence. His work also explores the theory and practice of transitional justice, with particular emphasis on community-based approaches to accountability and reconciliation and the law and politics of the International Criminal Court.

Dr. Clark holds a D.Phil in Politics from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. His latest book is The Gacaca Courts, Post-Genocide Justice and Reconciliation in Rwanda: Justice without Lawyers (Cambridge University Press, 2010). He is currently completing another book, Doing Justice during Conflict: The International Criminal Court in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has advised a wide range of government and nongovernmental organizations on conflict issues in Africa

The Transnational Law Institute, directed by Professor Mark Drumbl, was established in 2006 to support and coordinate teaching innovations, externships, internships, a speaker series and visiting faculty to help prepare students for the increasing globalization of legal practice. Learn more at http://law.wlu.edu/transnational.