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New issue of Global Affairs Review highlights student engagement with international law and policy

July 26, 2019

The magazine showcases Penn Law’s leadership in fostering students’ engagement with global developments in the areas of law, policy, and practice.

The Global Affairs Review showcases Penn Law’s leadership in fostering students’ engagement with global developments in the areas of law, policy, and practice.

As Penn Law’s Associate Dean for International Programs Rangita de Silva de Alwis writes in the introduction, the 2019 issue showcases the many ways Penn Law students are offered a seat at the table as the Law School has brought them “together with leaders and global policy makers from around the world, from the President of Switzerland, Alain Berset, to the Foreign Minister of Egypt, H.E. Mohamed Orabi.”

“This fall, thirteen Penn Law students will have the opportunity to sit at the boardroom table of Lubna Olayan, considered one of the world’s most successful businesswomen, and present her with their research on leadership and the global economy,” writes de Silva de Alwis. “The concept of a seat at the table correlates with President Gutmann’s vision of Penn’s educational diplomacy and its transformative power in the world. Consistent with that vision, Penn Law students, faculty, and staff are engaged in a project of soft-power educational diplomacy that advances the role of legal education in designing and implementing global solutions to today’s most pressing challenges.”

The issue also highlights much of the global programming that is already underway or slated to take place over the next few months, including a fact-finding mission to Banzul in August 2019 to learn more about Access to Justice in the Gambia, and visits to campus by Justice Sisi Khampepe, a justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Sandie Okoro, a champion of diversity who serves as Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the World Bank.

Students themselves have also taken the lead on fostering conversation and debate on global issues and inclusion: student-led culture salons address issues of race, gender, hybridity and cosmopolitanism from multiple perspectives; and Penn Law’s Feminism Podcast series continues to explore what feminism means to students at the Law School.

“The innovative engagements  showcased in the GAR aspire to Penn Law’s highest ideals of inclusion,” said de Silva de Alwis.

To learn more about how Penn Law is harnessing “The Transformative Power of Global Engagement,” read the full issue of the Global Affairs Review here.