About
SHU RULE OF LAW is a Web log and forum of Seton Hall University School of Law devoted to International Human Rights and the Rule of Law. It seeks to combine the work and focus of faculty, students and practitioners engaged in the defense and propogation of the Rule of Law, with an emphasis on International Human Rights both here and abroad.
The International Law program at Seton Hall Law is rooted in a dedication to scholarly learning, practical training, and impact. Courses are offered on campus and through study abroad in programs such as Law in Ireland, the Cairo Summer Program, and the Zanzibar Winter Intersession. Training occurs through the school’s Center for Social Justice/Clinical Programs, in which the International Human Rights Project advances equality and security for immigrants who face oppression. Haiti Rule of Law fosters the promotion of respect for human rights through the rule of law in a partnership with a small rural law school in Haiti, l’Ecole Superiure Catholique de Droit; and our Center for Policy and Research has helped lead the fight for justice in Guantanamo Bay through its series of world-renowned reports. These programs both empower and enable students to garner in-depth legal knowledge and career-related experience while having impact in the world.
Seton Hall Law Faculty
Seton Hall Law’s International Law faculty reflects a breadth of expertise and interest which transcends both subject and borders. Full time members, complemented by a wide array of distinguished practicing professionals who serve as adjuncts, teach International Law through course offerings, student-led case work, and publications. Recent faculty scholarship and interest has focused upon human trafficking, comparative constitutionalism, international criminal law and human rights, U.N. post-conflict international organization, Guantanamo Bay internment, immigration and asylum, and international private law.
Professor Bernard K. Freamon is the Director of the Law School’s Summer Program for the Study of Law in the Middle East, based in Cairo, the first and only ABA-approved study abroad program in the Arabic speaking Middle East. He also organizes Seton Hall Law’s Zanzibar Winter Intersession program in Tanzania, focusing on the twin problems of modern day slavery and human trafficking. His scholarship shows a particular concentration in Islamic Jurisprudence, Islamic Legal History, and Slavery and the Law. He was recently awarded a postdoctoral fellowship in the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University.
Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh is the former Director of Legal Policy and Governance at the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, a non-governmental policy forum and research institute formed to promote and support democratic reform and constitutionalism in Ghana. His recent scholarship has been focused upon African constitutionalism and the persistence of the “Imperial Presidency.”
Professor Kristen E. Boon has authored and co-authored numerous articles on such topics as legislative reform in post-conflict zones, international criminal courts, and federalism and the challenges of aboriginal self-government. Her most recent scholarship focuses on post-conflict economic impact and responsibility at the confluence of the international public and private spheres. Prior to joining Seton Hall Law she served as a legal officer for the U.N Mission in Kosovo and as a human rights officer for the High Commissioner for Human Rights in New York. She also served as clerk to Supreme Court of Canada Justice Ian Binnie.
Professor Elizabeth F. Defeis‘ expertise has been requested by governments and intergovernmental institutions including the OSCE and the United Nations. She has lectured in countries ranging from Azerbaijan, Russia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, Guinea Bissau, Nepal, Italy, Egypt and Germany. She has also participated in fact finding missions in Gaza and the West Bank, Armenia and Moldova and in numerous international conferences including the U.N. Conference on Women in Beijing, China and the U.N. Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, Austria. Her recent scholarship places particular focus upon the European Court of Justice’s record on Human Rights.
Through Seton Hall Law’s Civil Litigation Clinic, Professor Baher Azmy has filed lawsuits against United Nations diplomats and employees seeking damages and back wages for acts of human trafficking and involuntary servitude. In addition, Professor Azmy represents Murat Kurnaz, a German resident of Turkish descent who was detained in Guantánamo as an enemy combatant. His efforts and the plight of his client have been featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, 60 Minutes and a number of local and international publications. His client was released from Guantánamo to his home country in August 2006, never having been charged with a crime.
Professor Mark P. Denbeaux is the Director of the Center for Policy and Research. He has, along with Seton Hall Law Student Fellows, authored a series of Guantánamo Reports which have been widely cited, published and reported throughout the world. Professor Denbeaux’s work was originally spurred from his representation of two Guantánamo detainees.
Professor Lori A. Nessel is Director of the Center for Social Justice. She teaches courses in immigration and refugee law, International Human Rights Law, and supervises cases in the Immigration & Human Rights Clinic including claims under the Refugee Convention, Torture Convention, as well as cases involving human trafficking, and family reunification. Professor Nessel has also been actively involved in designing the International Human Rights/Rule of Law Project and is one of the principle faculty members engaged in Seton Hall Law’s Haiti Rule of Law Project. Her international teaching, training and research experience includes lecturing at the L’ecole Superieure Catholique de Droit in Jeremie, Haiti in 2003 and 2007, teaching International Human Rights Law in Parma, Italy in 2002, providing clinical training in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2006, and conducting comparative immigration law research in Spain as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in 2007-08. Her scholarship focuses upon various aspects of immigration and international human rights norms including: the intersection of immigration and labor laws as it affects undocumented workers, gender and immigration issues, the Torture Convention, family reunification, post-conflict community justice mechanisms and gender-based torture in Rwanda, and the plight of migrant farmworkers.
Professor Bryan Lonegan teaches in the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic. He and his classes have filed briefs and brought numerous actions on behalf of immigrants seeking asylum for human rights violations such as female genital mutilation, religious persecution, persecution for sexual orientation, and child soldier issues. Professor Lonegan also co-led the student/faculty delegation to Haiti in Spring of 2008 for Haiti Rule of Law.
Professor Tracy A. Kaye teaches European Union Business Law, Comparative Tax Law, and International Tax Planning, and specializes in federal income, international and comparative tax law. She is Co-Director of the IRS Chief Counsel’s Externship Program and the Dean Acheson Legal Stage Program, which is sponsored by the European Court of Justice and the American Embassy in Luxembourg to promote understanding of European Union Law among American lawyers. Of late, she was a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law in Munich, Germany. She was also a visiting professor at the University of International Business and Economics, School of Law, Beijing, China; at Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg, Germany (where she was a Fulbright Senior Scholar); and at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. She is also an Associate Member of the European Association of Tax Law Professors. Her recent scholarship has focused on EU and US taxation.
Professor Ahmed I. Bulbulia teaches International Criminal Law, U.S. Foreign Relations Law, Public International Law, and Conflict of Laws. He is a barrister at law of the Middle Temple and an advocate before the Supreme Court of South Africa. He is an expert in both public and private international law- he has wholeheartedly devoted himself to teaching International Law since 1967.
