Skip to main content

Penn Law welcomes 2014-15 Bok Professors

October 07, 2014

Four leading scholars will be teaching at Penn Law as part of the Bok Visiting International Professors program.
Four leading scholars will be teaching at Penn Law as part of the Bok Visiting International Professors program.
Four acclaimed intellectuals from around the world will teach short, highly focused courses at Penn Law as part of the Bok Visiting International Professors program.

This academic year, four international faculty members will lend their intellectual clout and global perspective to the Penn Law community as part of the Bok Visiting International Professors program. With their diverse knowledge — on subjects ranging from tax law to feminist legal theory — these scholars will expand the depth and breadth of Penn Law’s academic curriculum.

Each year as part of the Bok program, acclaimed intellectuals from around the world teach short, highly focused courses at Penn Law in their areas of expertise. Previous visiting professors have included judges, law school deans, and high-ranking government officials, who have taught on everything from the regulation of Indian capital markets to the legal aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Bok Professors are selected by members of the Law School faculty, who also serve as their hosts during their stay.

The 2014–15 Bok Visiting International Professors:

Martin Loughlin, London School of Economics, England — Teaching “Fundamentals of Public Law” (hosted by William Ewald, September 8–September 26, 2014)

Loughlin is a Professor of Law and Department Head at the London School of Economics. He is arguably the leading theorist of public law in the U.K. Loughlin was educated at LSE, the University of Warwick, and Harvard Law School. In addition to LSE, Loughlin has taught at the law faculties of York University, the University of Warwick, the University of Glasgow, and the University of Manchester. He is a fellow of the British Academy. 

Johannes Chan, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR — Teaching “Development of Constitutionalism in Hong Kong” (hosted by Jacques deLisle, October 6–October 24, 2014)

Chan is the former Dean of the Faculty of Law for the University of Hong Kong, one of the top law faculties in Asia. His research focuses on human rights, constitutional, and administrative law, and he has published widely in those fields. He is one of the founding editors of Hong Kong Public Law Reports and an editor of Hong Kong Law Reports and Digest and Hong Kong Cases. Chan has appeared as counsel in many leading human rights and constitutional law cases, and he was appointed the first Honorary Senior Counsel in Hong Kong in 2003. He is also a regular commentator of current social issues. 

Wolfgang Schoen, Max Planck Institute, Germany — Teaching “Leading Cases in European Corporate and Tax Law” (hosted by Michael Knoll, March 16–April 3, 2015)

Schoen is one of the world’s leading interdisciplinary tax scholars and a foremost authority on EU tax law and policy. He is the Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance; an Honorary Professor for civil, commercial, corporate, and tax law at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich; and Vice President of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation). He earned his doctorate from the University of Bonn, where he also did his legal studies. He was Vice President of the Max Planck Society from 2008–2014.

Helena Alviar Garcia, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia — Teaching “Latin American Law and Institutions” (hosted by William Burke-White, April 6–April 24, 2015)

Alviar is Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Universidad de los Andes, one of Latin America’s top law schools, and a leading scholar of law and development and feminist legal theory. She earned her SJD in economic law and gender in 2001 from Harvard Law School and an LLM from Harvard Law in 1997. She has been Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Universidad de los Andes since 2011. Previously, she served as Director of the Doctorate and Master’s in Law Programs. Alviar has published extensively in the areas of law and development, public law theory, private law theory, critical approaches to law, legal theory, feminist theory, administrative law, and constitutional law. She is the author of Derecho, Desarrollo y Feminismo en America Latina and Manual de Derecho Administrativo, and she has taught at universities around the world, including the University of Wisconsin, Brown University, Universidad de Puerto Rico, and the United Nations University of Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica.