Welcome

"Our graduates face legal practice that is rapidly globalizing. The Institute will preserve W&L's long-standing tradition of teaching excellence and anchor it within this contemporary context." - Prof. Mark Drumbl, Director

The Transnational Law Institute supports and coordinates teaching innovations, externships, internships, a speaker series, and visiting faculty to help prepare students for the increasing globalization of legal practice. The Institute, which was established in 2006, is committed to the integrated study of international and comparative law, as well as those aspects of U.S. law that involve cross-border issues.

Mark A. Drumbl, the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor of Law, serves as the Institute's Director. The Institute is supported by an interdisciplinary Board of Advisers.

The Institute has introduced new courses to the curriculum. Beginning in 2009-2010, Washington & Lee Law will initiate a mandatory 3 credit Transnational Law Course in the first year of the J.D. This will be offered in the second semester of the first year for 3 credits to all students. The Upper Year transnational curriculum also has rapidly expanded. In addition to a broad array of core courses in international and comparative law, as well as a variety of research seminars, we now offer an number of experiential courses in transnational law.  These include an International Tribunals Practicum in which students work directly under faculty supervision with lawyers engaged in criminal defense work at the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and national courts in Iraq.  Students also are working directly in and traveling to Liberia to work on human rights issues.  Other experiential offerings put students at the forefront of climate change litigation, European Court of Justice litigation, and issues of gender in Africa. 

The Institute assists students in assuming internships involving international or comparative law matters in a broad array of organizations. These students are designated Institute Summer Associates or, in the case of post-graduate externships, as Institute Associates. In 2008, six students participated in these programs. Two students were placed with the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative in Pristina, Kosovo; two students with the United Nations Office of Drugs and Corruption in Vienna, Austria; one student with REDRESS in London, and one student, Diane Meier 08L with the Human Rights Division of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Diane is the fourth W&L student to intern on a post-graduate basis with the OSCE, where much of the work involves monitoring war crimes trials and rule of law activities. One of our alums, Juliette Syn 08L currently is in Monrovia, Liberia, organizing W&L's relationships with our law school partners there. In 2007, Akiko Nishino, 08L, served as an intern for the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials (UNAKRT) in the Defense Support Section. Also in 2007, Seetha Srinivasan, 08L served as an Institute Summer Intern at the International Missing Children's Division of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In 2006, Nick Devereux, 07L, served as an intern for legal counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee in Washington D.C., and Mohamed Younis, also 07L, served as a trainee with African and Mid-East Refugee Assistance, a not-for-profit association in Cairo, Egypt.  The Institute plans once again on supporting several students in internship placements this academic year.

The Institute also coordinates visiting faculty and visiting scholars who come to W&L for short periods of time to teach intensive courses or undertake advanced research.  Faculty visitors include Prof. Jose Marcos Domingues, from the State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, who offers an intensive course on Latin American Law; Prof. Martin Matthews of Oxford University, who offers a course on comparative tort law; as well as researchers from law schools in Belgrade, Denmark, and Montenegro. 

The Institute also augments the scholarly life of the entire Washington and Lee community. Leading intellectuals and policymakers come to campus in an invited lecture series. To date, lecturers include two Presidents of the American Society of International Law, Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School and Professor Jose Alvarez of Columbia University Law School.  The current President of the American Society of International Law, Lucy Reed, will be speaking on campus in September 2009 and the President-Elect of the Society, David Caron, will come in the Winter of 2010. Other honorary speakers include a variety of prominent law professors, journalists, authors, and military leaders.