International and comparative law
Globalization is changing the world politically, economically, culturally, and legally. The Global Legal Studies Program will help prepare you for the global era in the classroom and out, thanks to our outstanding faculty, exchange programs, guest lecturers, and the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies.
Our curriculum is designed to help students develop an international perspective on all sorts of legal issues, from securities regulation to human rights. Students usually begin by taking either International Law or International Business Transactions as a foundation for more advanced work. As the list below reflects, we offer a wide range of lecture classes and seminars in various fields of interest.
In addition, as globalization becomes more pervasive throughout the legal curriculum, students with an interest in practicing in this arena should consider taking courses that reinforce substantive areas of interest, such as corporations, securities regulation, commercial law, and taxation.
B665: International Law
B735: International Business Transactions
B759: International Trade
Advanced Offerings
B793: Business and Human Rights
B748: Comparative Law: Comparative Legal Systems
B748: Comparative Law: Constitutional Design & the Economy
B748: Comparative Law: Islam & Human Rights
B575: Constitutional Design in Multiethnic Societies
L641: Constitutionalism in the Middle East
B755: European Union Law
B669: Immigration Law
B620: International Business Negotiations
B565: International Criminal Law
B783: International Environmental Law
B549: International Intellectual Property
B666: International Securities Regulation
L770: Seminar in Comparative Inequality
L770: Seminar in Comparative Law: Islamic Law
L728: Seminar in Globalization
L712: Seminar in International Law: Drone Law
L750: Seminar in Law and Development
L710: Seminar in Law and Society: Immigration Law
L724: Seminar in Law and Society of China
L636: Seminar in Transnational Law
Student activities and opportunities
The International Law Society sponsors guest speakers and informal discussions; and provides students with the opportunity to meet attorneys practicing in the international arena. The society also sponsors a team in the Jessup International Moot Court Competition each spring.
The Pro Bono Immigration Project allows students to work on immigration issues of non-citizens in the local community.
The Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies focuses on interdisciplinary research on law and globalization. Student editors work with the editorial board in selecting student articles and notes and undertake most of the editorial work in preparing articles for publication. In addition, each year the Journal sponsors a major conference on issues connected with globalization.
We encourage students interested in global legal studies to take advantage of one of our many study abroad programs.
For almost 100 years, Indiana Law has been providing graduate education to lawyers and students from around the globe. Each year we welcome dozens of international students from many foreign countries to our graduate program.
The Earl Snyder Lectureship in International Law, a collaboration between Indiana Law and Cambridge University, funds an annual lecture on international law by a prominent scholar or practitioner. The site of the lecture alternates between Cambridge and Bloomington. In addition, students may compete for the Snyder Scholarship, which funds a summer internship at the Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law at Cambridge University.
The Milt and Judi Stewart Center on the Global Legal Profession focuses on the unprecedented challenges lawyers are facing around the world and developing research and training materials to assist current and future attorneys in their understanding of international legal systems. The Center also sponsors the Milton Stewart Fellows, who work as externs in a variety of settings around the world.
Indiana Law's Center for Constitutional Democracy seeks to study and promote constitutional democracy in countries marked by ethnic, religious, linguistic, and other divisions. Founded and directed by John S. Hastings Professor of Law David Williams, the CCD focuses its work in Burma, Liberia, South Sudan, Vietnam, and Cuba, training the reform leaders of these countries in constitutionalism, parliamentary process, and legal ordering. The CCD is the only educational institution in the United States that offers students the chance to work directly and regularly with foreign reform leaders to support constitutional democracy.
The Center for American and Global Security formulates and implements strategies to broaden and deepen Indiana University's teaching, research, and service missions as they relate to homeland, national, and global security.
Interdisciplinary work and joint degrees
IU has long been a leader in international studies, and we encourage law students in the global legal studies program to take international courses outside the Law School. We also offer joint degree programs in Russian and East European studies and in Latin American and Carribean studies.
Fred Aman
Hannah Buxbaum
Paul Craig
William Hicks
Joseph Hoffmann
Feisal al-Istrabadi
Jay Krishnan
Marshall Leaffer
Ethan Michelson
Christiana Ochoa
Austen Parrish
Elisabeth Zoller
Jacqueline Simmons