Areas of International Collaboration

In August, 2001, the Rusk Center hosted faculty from three Palestinian universities for their UPLINK program.

The Dean Rusk Center—International, Comparative, and Graduate Legal Studies develops projects that serve to expand international dimensions of teaching, scholarship, and outreach at the School of Law. These projects originate from external requests, staff initiatives, and from personal initiatives of Law School faculty and students. Rusk Center staff works with interested national and international agencies and institutions on projects of mutual interest. The role of the Center in these initiatives includes project identification, development, background research, funding, and/or administration. The Rusk Center also supports the visionary ideas of faculty and students by assisting in the writing and administration of proposed projects in collaboration with foreign partners. Faculty members collaborate directly on the design and development of these projects. Initiatives that address international and comparative aspects of law, as well as interdisciplinary and student-faculty collaboration, are encouraged, thereby supporting creative scholarship in line with the Center's mission.

In keeping with the mission of the School of Law and the University of Georgia, Rusk Center projects focus on three areas: scholarship, teaching, and outreach.

Legal Scholarship

The Rusk Center serves as a nexus for scholarly exchange with foreign institutions on law and policy. "Developing the Palestinian Legal System: Institutional Partnering to Strengthen Human Capacity, Democratic Process and Economic Development" is one such initiative. The project aims to improve legislation, legal scholarship, and service in Palestinian territories through intensive workshops in diverse areas of law (commercial law, water law, intellectual property law, and alternative dispute resolution). It is funded by the United States Agency for International Development and the Association Liaison Office, under their U.S.-Palestinian Linkages in Higher Education (UPLINK) program. "Cooperation on Alternative Dispute Resolution: A Partnership for the Americas" is another collaborative program funded by the U.S. Department of State (1998 to 2002), which involves faculty exchange and research on alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, as well as library development and acquisitions on the subject.

Teaching

Professor Milner Ball (left) with USAL Director Praxedes M. Sagasta in Tierra del Fuego

Law faculty at the University of Georgia are active in teaching at foreign universities in Mexico, Argentina, Geneva, and Belgium. Each year, Associate Dean Gabriel Wilner directs and teaches at the Brussels Seminar on Law and Institutions of the European Union. Professor Wilner also has taught in the post-graduate program on international legal cooperation at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) since 1976. During the summer of 2000, Professor Michael Wells taught in the Duke-Geneva Institute in Transnational Law, and Professor Jim Smith taught at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM). Professors Milner Ball, Julian McDonnell, Gabriel Wilner, and Dorinda Dallmeyer, Associate Director of the Dean Rusk Center, each have taught at the Universidad del Salvador in Argentina in recent years through our faculty exchange program.

Outreach and Service

The most renowned of the Rusk Center's outreach programs is the International Judicial Training Program (IJTP). The Center collaborates closely with the Institute of Continuing Judicial Education to offer this program on effective judicial administration to foreign judiciaries. The IJTP is gaining prestige nationally and internationally as a result of concrete achievements in judicial reform resulting from the training of judges and court personnel from the State Courts of Pernambuco (Brazil) and the Judicial Service of Ghana. Rusk Center collaboration with the Judicial Service of Ghana extends beyond judicial training and has included collaborative planning for concrete reforms under the National Institutional Renewal Program's 10-Year Strategic Plan for the Judicial Service (December 2000) and an exchange with the Georgia Courts Automation Commission (May 2001).