Bok Visiting International Professors (VIPs) Program

To create a more global campus, Penn Law annually invites several internationally recognized experts in international and comparative law from around the world to Philadelphia. Penn Law faculty members nominate these Bok Visiting International Professors who are distinguished senior academics, jurists or professionals across a wide range of disciplines and specialties.

While at Penn, Bok VIPs teach a course, offer a faculty seminar, and participate in Law School and University activities related to their field. The Bok Professors are drawn from around the globe, diversifying curricula for students and providing additional resources for standing faculty. The Bok VIP program gives students access to top international experts and offers new perspectives on cutting edge issues in international and comparative law.

For the 2011-12 school year, Penn Law welcomes:

Arie Reich (September 2011)
Arie Reich is the Dean of the Law Faculty at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and a world renowned expert on international trade law. He pioneered the field in Israeli academia and has published some thirty academic books and articles in Israel, Europe, and North America. The University of Pennsylvania  Journal of International Law has published his work and also invited him to write the foreword (with Oren Perez) for its Winter 2005 issue. The Israeli government has appointed him as its representative to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law and as one of its arbitrators under the Washington Treaty for the Settlement of Investment Disputes and under the Mexico-Israel Free Trade Agreement. He received his LL.B. from Bar Ilan University and his LL.M. and S.J.D. degrees from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Gideon Parchomovsky serves as Reich’s faculty host.

Juan Guzmán Tapia (October 2011)
Juan Guzmán Tapia is a distinguished Chilean law professor who gained international prominence as the judge who led the investigation and prosecution of General Augusto Pinochet for human rights violations committed by the Pinochet regime. Judge Guzmán’s efforts to bring Pinochet to trial formed the basis for the 2008 feature-length documentary The Judge and the General. Guzmán retired from the Santiago appeals court in 2005 and is now a Professor of Procedural Law at the School of Law of the Catholic University of Santiago. He has also served as Dean at the School of Law at the Central University of Chile, where he now directs the center for human rights studies. Judge Guzmán has been honored with the Oscar Romero Award for Leadership in Service to Human Rights and the Letelier-Moffit Human Rights Award. Sarah Paoletti serves as Guzmán’s faculty host.

Henrik Lando (January 2012)
Henrik Lando is Professor of Law and Economics and the Director of the Center for Law, Economics, and Financial Institutions at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS). He is one of the leading law-and-economics scholars in Europe, writing about a wide variety of areas of the law, including contracts, torts, criminal law, and evidence, and has published extensively in interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journals. He has visited numerous universities in the United States, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where was a visiting scholar in the economics department. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Copenhagen. Howard Chang serves as Lando’s faculty host.

Joshua Getzler (March 2012)
Joshua Getzler is a senior member of the law faculty of Oxford University, where he is Professor of Law and Legal History as well as a Fellow at St. Hugh’s College. Since 2007, he has also been a Conjoint Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He studied both law and history at the Australian National University, then earned a doctorate degree in legal history at Oxford University. His research and scholarship covers a wide range of topics: medieval and modern legal history, law and economics, contracts, equity and trusts, property theory, capital markets, and Roman law. His 2004 book, A History of Water Rights at Common Law is considered one of the leading theoretical contributions to the area of riparian rights, and has been cited in the highest common law courts. Getzler has also notably contributed to the theory of trusts and fiduciary law. In 2005, Getzler won the Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship, awarded by the U.K. Society of Legal Scholars (SLS), for his book. Shyam Balganesh serves as Getzler’s faculty host.

Hideki Kanda (Co-teaching course with Eric Feldman in March 2012)
Hideki Kanda is Professor of Law at the University of Tokyo. His main areas of specialization include commercial law, corporate law, banking regulation, and securities regulation. He taught as a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School in 1989, 1991 and 1993, and as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School in 1996. His corporate law book is the standard text on the subject in Japanese universities. He has written many articles in English as well as Japanese in his areas of specialization. He is widely regarded as the top corporate and securities academic in Japan. Both Ed Rock and Charles Mooney serve as Kanda's faculty hosts.

Pratap Mehta (April 2012)
Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s core research interests include political theory, constitutional law, society and politics in India, governance and political economy, and international affairs.  He has taught, studied and conducted research at many peer institutions including Harvard, Oxford, and Princeton.  Dr. Mehta also serves on many government and policy bodies in India, including the Prime Minister of India’s National Knowledge Commission and the Supreme Court appointed Committee on Regulating Indian Universities.  In addition to serving on committees Mehta has developed policy reports for organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, and the U.K. Department for International Development.  His work is widely published in both academic journals and media outlets. Shyam Balganesh serves as Mehta’s faculty host.

Previous Bok Visiting International Professors

Fall 2010

• Okko Behrends - Professor Emeritus of Roman Law, German Private Law and the History of Civil Law at the Institute of Legal History, Legal Philosopy and Comparative Law at Göttingen University. [more]
  He also actively particpates as a Fellow of the Academy of Science of Göttingen (since 1982) and was Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large, Cornell University from 2003-2009 and Dr. honoris causa of Stockholm University in 2009. His scholarly interests embrace both legal theory and constitutional law and focus on how legal realia - laws and procedure - are supported and challenged, in ancient and modern times, by religion and philosophy. He focuses on the fundamental differences between the two competing schools of law in the Augustan constitution. The first school, which prioritized augural religion and under whose auspices Rome wasfounded, espoused a central message that the rule of law provides divine blessing. The second – the Roman legal science shool - was formed during the Republican period through the subsequent reception of two great hellenistic philosophies, stoicism and academic scepticism. Differences between the two schools were tolerated so long as they both contributed to the rule of law. This approach was blended into early Christianity and explains the enduring continuity of Roman law.
• Armin von Bogdandy - Director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg and Professor of Public Law at the Goethe-University, Frankfurt/Main. [more]
  He is President of the OECD Nuclear Energy Tribunal and a member of the German Science Council (Wissenschaftsrat). In June 2008, Professor Bogdandy received the Berlin-Brandenburgian Academy of the Sciences Prize for outstanding scientific achievements in the field of foundations of law and economics, sponsored by the Commerz-bank foundation. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2008-2013). He was invited to be the Inaugural Fellow at the Straus Institute for Advanced Study of Law and Justice, New York University during the 2009-2010 academic year and was recently appointed a Senior Emile Noel Fellow by the Global Law School of the New York University (2010-2015), following two separate stints as an NYU Global Law Professor.

Spring 2011

• Hauwa Ibrahim - Senior partner at Aries Law Firm, working as lead attorney with a team devoted to protecting human rights for women in Nigeria. [more]
  In 2005, the European Parliament awarded Ibrahim the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, citing her work as a defense counsel in approximately fifty cases before Islamic courts, many of which involved women who were sentenced to death by stoning. She has been a Visiting Professor at Saint Louis University School of Law and Stonehill College, a World Fellow at Yale University, a Radcliffe fellow, and a fellow at both the Human Rights Program and the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard University. Her research examines the interpretation of Shari'a law and how it has influenced the rights of women in West Africa. Ms. Ibrahim will teach a course on gender and Islamic law during her stay at Penn from February 5 - March 6, 2011.
• KP Krishnan - Secretary of the Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minister of India (from July 2010). [more]
  For the preceding five years, Dr. Krishnan served as Joint Secretary of the Capital Markets Division of the Indian Department of Economic Affairs, where he was responsible for securing approval of Parliament for a new legal framework for securitization, placing for parliamentary approval a new legal and regulatory framework for pension sector reforms, preparing a blueprint for Indian financial sector reforms including fundamental reforms in the regulatory architecture, preparing legislation on reform of securities markets including putting in place arrangements for financial stability, leading the successful effort for introduction of new products like Exchange Traded Currency Futures, Interest Rate Futures, Credit Default Swaps and Corporate Repos, and carrying out preparatory work for the setting up of an independent Public Debt Management Office. He has also held positions in Karnataka state government and worked as an advisor to the Executive Director of World Bank in Washington DC. Dr. Krishnan belongs to the Indian Administrative Service, Karnataka Cadre, 1983 batch. He received his Ph.D. (Eco) from Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore and M.A. (Eco) from University of Mysore. While at Penn Law, Dr. Krishnan taught a course on capital market regulation in India.
• Zhaojie Li - Leading PRC scholar on China and the international legal system, currently a Professor of Law, Director of the Center for International Legal Studies and the Director of the Center for the Law of the Sea at Tsinghua University School of Law. [more]
  He has been Vice President of the Chinese Society of International Law and a member of the Executive Board of the Chinese Society of International Law since 2000. He has previously served as a visiting scholar at the Hague Academy of International Law (1989), Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (1990), and the University of California at Berkeley (1991) and has taught as a visiting or associate professor at Peking University, Duke University, City University of Hong Kong, and the Graduate School of Law & Politics of the University of Tokyo (2002-2003). While at Penn, Professor Li will be co-teaching a course on China & International Law with Professor Jacques deLisle.
• Michael Stolleis - Was until 2006 Professor for Public Law and History of Law at the University of Frankfurt. [more]
  From 1992 until 2009 he also directed the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History. He was awarded both the Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsmeinschaft (1991) and the Prize of the International Balzan Foundation (2002). He is a member of several scientific academies and received honorary degrees from the Universities of Lund, Toulouse, Padova, and Helsinki. His main work is a “History of Public Law in Germany” (1600-1645), 3 vol., 1988-1999, second and third volume appeared in English (vol. II 1800-19154, New York (Berghahn Books) 2001; vol. III 1914-1945, Oxford University Press 2004). Collected articles appeared under the title The Law under the Swastika. Studies on Legal History in Nazi Germany, Chicago 1998. See also: The Eye of the Law. Two Essays on Legal History, Birbeck Law Press, London 2009.

Spring 2010

• Chenguang Wang (Beijing, China) - In spring 2010, Chenguang Wang co-taught a 1L perspectives course, Chinese Law, with Professor Jacques deLisle. [more]
  Wang has been Dean of Tsinghua Law School since 2002, where he currently teaches Legal Theory, Legislative and Judicial Theory and Practice, Comparative Law and the Legal Clinic at Tsinghua. Chenguang Wang obtained his PhD from Peking University Law School, and holds LLM degrees from both Peking and Harvard Universities. Dean Wang's research interests are in the fields of jurisprudence, sociology of law, comparative law and judicial practice. He has published articles on legal reasoning, constitutional law, judicial reform and legal education. He has also co-authored several books including The Chinese Legal System, New Trends in Comparative Law and Twenty Years of Reform and Development of The People's Congress. Before joining the faculty of Tsinghua University in 2000, Dean Wang was a lecturer, associate professor and then vice dean at Peking University Law School. He has previously served as a visiting professor at the University of Florida Law School in 1991, as a Fulbright Scholar and Honorable Research Fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School from 1993 to 1994, and as a visiting professor at the Academic Council of the Garrigues Chair on Global Law, Universidad de Navarra
• Setsuo Miyazawa (Tokyo, Japan) - Setsuo Miyazawa taught a short course on Justice System Reform in Japan in spring 2010. [more]
  Miyazawa is currently a professor of law at Aoyama Gakuin University Law School in central Tokyo, where he teaches the sociology of law, public interest lawyering, legal research, and coordinates courses on American law. He has previously been a full-time faculty member at Omiya Law School, Waseda University, Kobe University, and Hokkaido University. Professor Miyazawa is a legal sociologist who received his LL.B., LL.M. and S.J.D. from Hokkaido University and M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University. Professor Miyazawa holds a wide range of research interests, including police and criminal justice, legal ethics and public interest lawyering, legal education and corporate legal practice. His doctoral degree in Japan focused on policing, while his American doctoral degree concentrated on corporate legal departments. He has published or edited more than a dozen books in Japanese and English. His first English book, Policing in Japan (SUNY Press, 1992), received the 1993 Distinguished Book Award from the Division of International Criminology of the American Society of Criminology. One of his most recent books was the first casebook published on legal ethics in Japan, and was co-edited with two lawyers, including a Supreme Court Justice. He has been highly active in the promotion of judicial reform in Japan and is one of the most prominent proponents of the introduction of the American-style graduate professional law schools into Japan. He has also been active in the Law and Society Association in the United States, twice serving on its Board of Trustees.

2009

• Jean-Bernard Auby, Professor of Public Law and Director of Governance and Public Law Center, Sciences Po (France)
• Michael Faure, Professor of Environmental Law and Law and Economics, Maastricht University (Netherlands)

2008

• Gunther Frankenberg, Professor of Public Law and Philosophy, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
• Akio Shimizu, leading Japanese scholar of public law and international economic law, Waseda Law School (Japan)

2007

• Michael Trebilcok, a leading figure in the field of law and economics, University of Toronto (Canada)