Conference: Realistic Idealism in International Law

I am very happy to announce that Yale Law School will sponsor a conference in honor of W. Michael Reisman, on April 24, 2009, in New Haven. The topic is "Realistic Idealism in International Law." Conference organizers include myself, Mahnoush H. Arsanjani (Director, Codification Division, U.N. Office of Legal Affairs), Robert D. Sloane (Boston Univ. - Law), and Siegfried Wiessner (St. Thomas Univ. - Law). The program is here. Here's a description:

Yale Law School will hold a conference on April 24, 2009, to honor the work of W. Michael Reisman ’64 LL.M, ’65 J.S.D. Professor Reisman is the Myres S. McDougal Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, where he has been on the faculty since 1965. He has been a visiting professor in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Berlin, Basel, Paris, and Geneva. He is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science and a former member of its Executive Council. From 1992-1995, he served as a member and subsequently chairman of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He is the President of the Arbitration Tribunal of the Bank for International Settlements and has been elected to the Institut de Droit International. In addition to being a world-renowned scholar, Professor Reisman is an active practitioner, serving as an arbitrator in countless public international and investor-state arbitrations and as counsel in other arbitrations and in cases before the International Court of Justice.

Professor Reisman has published widely in the area of international law and jurisprudence. His publications include hundreds of articles and more than twenty books, the most recent of which are Foreign Investment Disputes: Cases, Materials and Commentary (with Bishop and Crawford); and International Law in Contemporary Perspective (with Arsanjani, Wiessner and Westerman).

Leading international law scholars will come from the United States and around the world to participate in the April 24 conference. The event will begin with introductory remarks by Dean Harold Hongju Koh at 8:30 a.m. and will be followed by two morning panels on Jurisprudence and The Use of Force. The afternoon will open with a panel on Trade, Investment, and Dispute Settlement and end with one on Human Rights. Judge Rosalyn Higgins, President of the International Court of Justice, will give the closing remarks at 5:30 p.m. The conference will conclude with a reception in the Alumni Reading Room at 6:00 p.m.

The panel discussions are free and open to the public. For further information about the program, please see the conference agenda. If you plan to attend, please RSVP by sending an email to ylsreis@pantheon.yale.edu.