UW-Madison Law School and Office of International Studies and Programs officials announced over the weekend the creation of a new Global Legal Studies Initiative, set to provide a partnership between the two departments, promote research, offer workshops and conferences, and provide a richer background of legal issues around the world.
David Trubek, director of the Center for World Affairs and Global Economy, said the primary function of the initiative is to present law students with research opportunities, visiting scholars and other events to \build bridges"" to the rest of the university.
""We will be emphasizing the study of the role of law in a lot of the global changes that are going on in the world,"" Trubek said.
Though the initiative will not officially begin until the summer, Trubek said he has already planned two events that will take place next year. One is a workshop that will study how businesses are regulated across international borders. The second is a major conference that will examine how developing countries can better deal with legal issues in world trade laws.
Another goal of the initiative is to set up a permanent center on global legal studies to carry on the initiative's objectives permanently after its approval by the law school and the university, according to a press release.
The initiative will also be a way to reveal the rich resources of the law school in internationality, according to Trubek. He said the university already has faculty experts of legal systems in such diverse places as Russia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, China and Korea.
""This group [of experts], once assembled under the umbrella of this new initiative, will be developing a lot of really interesting and exciting programs to enrich the courses that we are teaching or will be teaching,"" Trubek said.
