Law Professor at UN Meeting on World Investment

U of A Law Professor Uche Ewelukwa was in Geneva, Switzerland, on April 29 and 30 for the United Nations’ Peer Review Meeting on the World Investment Report 2015. The meeting brought together a group of experts on international investment agreements at the invitation of the United Nations.

“Professor Ewelukwa’s work with the World Investment Report showcase her impressive standing in the global community,” said Stacy Leeds, dean of the School of Law. “This is a shining example of the law school’s international service and global reach.”

In addition to Ewelukwa’s work with the World Investment Report, the School of Law has several international initiatives, including the Russia Law Summer Program, the Cambridge Study Abroad Program and the Law and Cultural Heritage summer course that will feature a class trip to Rome this May.

Ewelukwa is the Arkansas Bar Foundation Professor and recently accepted a book publication offer from Oxford University Press. She is an active member of the American Bar Association Section on International Law and currently serves as the co-chair of the Committee on Investment and Development, the vice-chair of the International Intellectual Property Rights Committee, as well as the Vice-Chair of the Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility of the association. Ewelukwa is also an active member of the American Society of International Law and currently serves as the co-chair of the Intellectual Property Interest Group and the co-chair of the Africa Interest Group. She is the secretary general of the African Society of International Law.

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Fulbright Scholar Program: Field of Law

The announcement below is courtesy of the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program

The Fulbright Scholar Program offers teaching, research or combined teaching and research awards in over 125 countries for the 2016-2017 academic year. Opportunities are available for college and university faculty and administrators, as well as for professionals, artists, journalists, scientists, lawyers, independent scholars and many others. 

This year, the Fulbright Scholar Program is offering over 80 awards in the field of Law. Exciting opportunities are available in many countries, including but not limited to: 

• Bulgaria: Law
• Burma: All Disciplines (Law among preferred disciplines)
• East Asia and the Pacific: Cross-Strait Studies
• Ghana: Law
• Jamaica: All Disciplines (Law among preferred disciplines)
• Jordan: Public Policy and International Relations
• Nepal: All Disciplines (Law among preferred disciplines)
• Norway: International Courts and Tribunals
• Sweden: Fulbright-Lund University Chair in Public International Law 

For further awards in the field of Law, please visit our new Opportunities in Law webpage. There you will find award highlights and examples of successful projects in the discipline. 

For eligibility factors, detailed application guidelines and review criteria, please follow this link. You may also wish to register for one of our webinars or join our online community, My Fulbright, a resource center for applicants interested in the program.  

Applicants must be U.S. citizens and the current competition will close on August 3, 2015.
We are happy to answer any questions you may have regarding any of the opportunities listed above or the Fulbright Scholar Program in general. 

The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, is the U.S. government’s flagship international exchange program and is supported by the people of the United States and partner countries around the world. For more information, visit eca.state.gov/fulbright.

Global Anti-Corruption Officer and Vice-President of Wal-Mart to join Rule of Law Class

We are pleased to share that tomorrows Rule of Law Class will be joined by special guest Tom Gean, Global Anti-Corruption Officer and Vice-President of WalMart. This is an honor and a wonderful opportunity for us. Mr. Gean began his legal career as an associate at Alston & Bird LLP. He then became the Prosecuting Attorney for Sebastian County and, later, the United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas. He joined Walmart in 2004 as its Chief Legal Compliance Officer (U.S.) and Vice-President. He became Walmart's Global Anti-Corruption Officer and Vice-President in 2012.

Mr. Gean received his law degree from Vanderbilt University. He earned his Bachelor in Business Administration from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where he was captain of the U of A swimming team.

As we've previously reported, University of Arkansas School of Law Associate Professor Christopher Kelley has taught a Rule of Law course for the J.D. and LL.M. students at Arkansas for a number of years. While in the past, the course has always included live video-conferenced discussions with attorneys from other countries, this year the student body in the course is also transnational. Students from the well-regarded Taras Shevchenko Faculty of Law in Kyiv, Ukraine are participating in the class by live video conference.

Professor Christopher Kelley teaches at Belarusian State University

In March, Professor Christopher R. Kelley returned to Minsk to teach a course in Negotiation Skills to  undergraduate students majoring in Business Administration and English at the School of Business and Management of Technology of Belarusian State University. Professor Kelley was the first American law professor to teach at the Belarusian State University Law Faculty in Minsk, Belarus. As noted in the article posted on the BSU webpage, Professor Kelley's extensive professional business, legal and teaching experience, obtained in the US, as well as in Lithuania, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Russia and Belarus and other countries allowed Professor Kelly to accumulate and compare his impressions and experiences and develop a practical course on negotiating. More information on Professor Kelley's visit may be found on the BSU webpage.

Law & Cultural Heriatge Course to be Offered at the School of Law

Last Spring, the University of Arkansas School of Law offered a collaborative course in Law & Cultural Heritage. We are pleased to report that this popular course will return this summer, and will once again include an option for field work in Rome. The course is facilitated by Don Judges, Associate Dean of Graduate & Experiential Learning, and is taught by visiting professors Stephen J. Cribari and Barbara Wold. 

Professor Cribari is a Visiting Professional Specialist at the University of Notre Dame Law School and former co-Director of Notre Dame Law School’s London Summer Programme. Professor Cribari is a true Renaissance Man. Published poet and playwright, expert in Art and Cultural Heritage, Evidence, and Criminal Law and procedure, he has taught in law schools across the United States, in London, for the Weisman Art Museum and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, at the FBI training academy in Quantico, for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, for the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals, and for Marine JAG.


Professor Wold is an archaeologist, anthropologist, and lawyer. She has advised museums on Native American and international repatriation, taught courses in Law & Cultural Property and Museum Legal Issues at the University of Minnesota Law School and the University of Arkansas School of Law, and worked in University and Museum General Counsel offices in private practice concentrating on cultural and intellectual property law. Professor Wold has spoken at international assemblies on issues of cultural property, museum law, and intellectual property rights and regulations. When not in Fayetteville,  Professors Wold and Cribari are able to join the class by video conference.

 A description of the course is included below:

Art and antiquities inspire, intrigue, and delight.  And they cause legal problems. Collectors, museum curators, archaeologists, academics, politicians, legislators, military commanders, indigenous peoples, religious groups– all have interests in the rare and the beautiful.  Those interests may be artistic or scientific, economic or political, cultural or religious.  Art and antiquities are also commodities: they can be owned, loaned, sold, stolen, legally or illegally exported and imported.

We will consider these interests through questions such as whether the Elgin Marbles should be in the British Museum or Greece; the use of cultural property laws to take down or erect national cultural and political barriers; whether antiquities have artistic, religious, or only scientific, value; whether museums play a significant role in today’s world; whether museum directors and art conservers are bound by ethical constraints; whether the cultural heritage of First Peoples should be specially preserved.

In Rome, we will concentrate on the resolution of Holocaust-era claims regarding Nazi looting of art, illegal traffic in stolen antiquities, and the problems presented by cultural property during armed conflict. Law & Cultural Heritage Class includes required five days of classes (2 credits) and optional field work in Rome, Italy for one additional credit, May 16-22, 2015.

Documentary from Ukraine: Six Months of Freedom

Our thoughts continue to be with our friends, colleagues, and alumni in Ukraine.

Professor Kelley is currently in Kyiv, Ukraine teaching a short course in negotiations and meeting with colleagues there.  He sent us a link to a documentary film project that is a pro bono initiative of the Inyurpolis Law Firm (ILF), a law firm that he is affiliated with as a consultant. ILF is based in Kharkiv, Ukraine. The project is called Six Months of Freedom, and they released the first of a series of independent films that will be produced. The project's stated objective is "to create an information platform free from politics and vested interest of media moguls, as well as to develop independent media and documentary films."

This first film tells the stories of the doctors and nurses of the Kharkiv military hospital, the Kharkiv volunteers, and the injured Ukrainian soldiers.  Professor Kelley describes the documentary as providing "a look at the war that you will not see elsewhere."

We were moved by the documentary, and it is posted here for your review.  Note that it is in Ukrainian, with English subtitles. Many of the images and the human spirit depicted transcend language.

Arkansas Rule of Law Course Connects with Students from Ukraine

For a number of years, University of Arkansas School of Law Associate Professor Christopher Kelley has taught a Rule of Law course for the J.D. and LL.M. students at Arkansas.  The course explores the meaning of the Rule of Law and why it matters.

While in the past, the course has always included live video-conferenced discussions with attorneys from other countries, this year the student body in the course is also transnational.

Students from the well-regarded Taras Shevchenko Faculty of Law in Kyiv, Ukraine are participating in the class by live video conference.

This not only allows the Ukrainian students access to this important course, it provides Arkansas students with a chance to interact with students from another country -  a country in the midst of a powerful reform movement and often on the world's center-stage.

We were delighted to see Professor Kelley, the Rule of Law course, and the opportunity for participating featured on the website of the American Common Law Center (ACLC) at Taras Shevchenko.

The ACLC is a new center with a "vision that highlights education, research and law practice."

It was created within the framework of cooperation between Ukraine and the United States in order to promote cultural exchange, education, pursue research, put forward proposals for legal reforms in Ukraine, defend human rights in a law clinic and enhance professional development of а individuals.

The ACLC provides students with "a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of native speakers without crossing any borders."

We are proud to assist in that process.

Connecting with Lithuania

On January 12, Professor Christopher Kelley taught a negotiation skills workshop at the Create for Lithuania program in Vilnius, Lithuania.  As describe on its LinkedIn page, " 'Kurk Lietuvai' ("Create for Lithuania") is a one-year rotation based young professionals programme launched by "Invest Lithuania" in partnership with the Lithuanian Government, aimed at Lithuanian youth who have completed their studies in foreign academic institutions.

The team of 20 selected young professionals works with strategic governmental projects of a wide scope and is provided with an opportunity to participate in high-level decision-making processes. Individual 4-months rotations in the public sector are tailor-made according to participants’ backgrounds and preferences. Participants present their projects to the Lithuanian Government as well as the public at the end of each rotation."

This is the second time Professor Kelley has taught negotiation skills in the Create for Lithuania program. Dean Julija Kirsiene of the Vytautas Magnus University Law Faculty in Kaunas, Lithuania, taught the workshop with Professor Kelley. During the week of December 6, Professor Kelley taught negotiation skills for a week at the European Humanities University, a Belarusian university "in exile" in Vlinius, Lithuania. This was the fourth time he has taught for a week at EHU.