Faculty International Activities

Professor Gerry W. Beyer, Governor Preston E. Smith Regents Professor of Law, served as a Visiting Professor at the La Trobe University School of Law in Melbourne, Australia. He taught a course in February/March 2008 entitled "USA Commercial Law" in La Trobe's Global Business Law program. He has had students from a variety of nations including Australia, France, Germany, Malaysia, Mexico, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.

  Biography and other information about Professor Beyer

Professor Christopher Bruner, Assistant Professor of Law at Texas Tech University School of Law, will be speaking on the regulation of the global economy at two international conferences this summer.

• His forthcoming paper titled "States, Markets, and Gatekeepers: Public-Private Regulatory Regimes in an Era of Economic Globalization" has been selected for presentation at the conference on "Theorising the Global Legal Order," to be held at the Swansea University School of Law (Wales), in May 2008.
• Professor Bruner will also present the paper at the inaugural conference of the Society of International Economic Law ("New Horizons of International Economic Law"), to be held at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, in July 2008.
• In addition, Professor Bruner's article titled "Culture, Sovereignty, and Hollywood: UNESCO and the Future of Trade in Cultural Products" will be published this spring in volume 40 of the New York University Journal of International Law and Politics.
• Professor Bruner has also accepted an invitation to contribute a chapter to a book on the future of international trade law. The chapter, titled "UNESCO, the WTO, and Trade in Cultural Products," is adapted with permission from portions of the article noted above, and the book, titled ESSAYS ON THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (Julien Chaisse & Tiziano Balmelli eds.), will be published this spring by Editions Interuniversitaires Suisses.

  Biography and other information on Professor Bruner.

Professor Bryan T. Camp is one of 16 scholars from the U.S. and Germany invited by the Hans-Bredow Institute for Media Research at the University of Hamburg to participate in a workshop on the legal issues evolving around virtual worlds on May 28, 2008. From the invitation: "It would be great to have you on board, since we were impressed by your work in this field. In every segment, we will have three to four short presentations with corresponding discussions. What we would like to create is a fully open and constructive workshop atmosphere (maximum 16 participants), where old and new legal concepts as well as common law and civil law traditions are brought together by way of looking at a (still) relatively new phenomenon. It should be more than interesting to see which solutions to existing and emerging virtual world issues will be sought."

Professor Camp's article on Virtual Worlds can be found here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=980693

  Biography and other information about Professor Camp

Professor Gabriel Eckstein, the George W. McCleskey Professor of Water Law at Texas Tech University, is invited to speak at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Society of International Law in Washington, DC, scheduled for April 9-12, 2008. Professor Eckstein will participate on the panel discussing The Politics of Transboundary Waters.

• In July 2008, Professor Eckstein is invited to participate in a workshop on International Boundaries and Transboundary Rivers in Durham, England, where he will offer lectures on international water law and run a negotiations exercise. That workshop is hosted by the International Boundary Research Unit at the University of Durham.
• Last November 2007, Professor Eckstein participated in a North Atlantic Treaty Organization Water Workshop on Natural Resources Governance in Regions of Extreme Conditions in Ein Gedi, Israel, where he presented a paper on "Applicability and Adaptability of Customary International Water Law Principles to Regions of Extreme Conditions."
• In addition, Professor Eckstein recently published "Commentary on the U.N. International Law Commission's Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers ," which is published in volume 18 of the Colorado Journal of International Law and Policy.
• He is currently working on two papers. The first, co-authored with Dr. Aaron Wolf of Oregon State University and Dr. Itay Fischhendler of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is entitled "The Role of Creative Language in Addressing Political Realities: Middle-Eastern Water Agreements." The second, co-authored with Tech Law alumnus Amy Hardberger, currently with Environmental Defense in Austin, is entitled "State Practice in the Management and Allocation of Transboundary Ground Water Resources in North America."

  Biography and other information on Professor Eckstein

Professor Susan Saab Fortney, George H. Mahon Professor of Law, Paul Whitfield Horn Professor, will be speaking in Amsterdam in May 2008 at the annual meeting of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. Her topic will be "Lawyer Liability and Transnational Practice."

• In July 2008, Professor Fortney will be speaking at the 3rd International Conference on Legal Ethics. The conference will be at the Gold Coast in Australia. Her topic is "Ethical Conduct in Large Law Firms: The Role of Corporate Structure, Controls, and Compensation."
• In connection with a study on large law firms, Professor Fortney is also collaborating with law professors at the University of Melbourne.

  Biography and other information about Professor Fortney

Professor Marilyn Phelan, Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Law, is a Member of the Legal Affairs Committee for International Council of Museums. Other activities include:

• Vice Chair, International Cultural Property Committee, Section of International Law & Practice, American Bar Association
• Chair, Drafting Committee for a Uniform Unincorporated Nonprofit Association Act for the Americas (U.S., Canada, and Mexico)
• Lecturer, International Cultural Property Issues, Mexico City, 2006
• 2007 Oxford roundtable (Ethics in Government)

  Biography and other information about Professor Phelan

Professor Jorge Ramírez, Professor of Law and Director of International Programs, has been invited by the United Nations-mandated University for Peace ("UPEACE") and Global Majority to teach at their June 2008 international seminar in Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica. The seminar, entitled "Promoting Peace through Dialogue," will focus on international negotiation, mediation and conflict resolution. Global Majority is a 501(C)3 non-profit organization, which promotes non-violent conflict resolution, and UPEACE is a U.N. Treaty Organization created in 1980 by the U.N. General Assembly with the mission of providing the world with an international institution of higher learning that focuses on education for peace. UPEACE is the only U.N. entity authorized to grant degrees at the Masters and Doctoral levels, and is considered one of the most diverse universities of its size in the world. Professor Ramírez's teaching will focus on the various dispute settlement procedures provided for in both the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

• Professor Ramírez will lead a team of professors and students to Guanajuato, Mexico in June of 2008 to participate in the school's Summer Law Institute. Among other things, Ramírez will be teaching a course entitled: "NAFTA and Trade in the Americas."
• In August of 2007, Ramírez taught a series of seminars on Professional Responsibility at the Tecnológico de Monterrey University Law School, one of Mexico’s best known universities. The various lectures, delivered in both Spanish and English, were part of a U.S. AID grant awarded to a partnership team consisting of Texas Tech University School of Law and Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles. The grant seeks to provide Mexican law schools and lawyers with an introduction to the system of oral advocacy and defense practices found in the United States.
• In January of 2007, Ramírez was invited by the Central Party School ("CPS") of the Communist Party of China to participate in an educational and cultural exchange program. The CPS serves as the Communist Party's ideological research institute and as the main training program for cadres slated for senior posts. Among other things, Ramirez participated in discussions with CPS leaders in both Beijing and Shenzhen, the first city in China to experiment with capitalism.
• Ramírez also serves as a member of the University's International Affairs Council.
• Selected publications include:
  • "Iraq War: Anticipatory Self-Defense or Unlawful Unilateralism," 34 California Western International Law Journal 1 (Fall 2003).
  • "Rules of Origin - NAFTA's Heart but FTAA's Heartburn," 29 Brooklyn Journal of International Law 617 (March, 2004).
  • "International Law Impacts Texas and the Texas Tech School of Law Responds," 35 Texas Tech Law Review 265 (Spring, 2004).

  Biography and other information on Professor Ramírez.

Professor Brian Shannon is Charles "Tex" Thornton Professor of Law.

• In June 2007, Professor Shannon was an invited speaker and put together a panel on the topic of Diversion of Offenders with Mental Illness at the International Academy of Law & Mental Health's 30th International Congress in Padua, Italy.
• In July 2005, Professor Shannon and Professor Nancy Soonpaa coached two students, Mandy Gundlach and Joy Gibbs, who won the International Negotiation Competition in Dublin, Ireland. Professor Shannon then served as a representative of the United States delegation at the 2006 competition.

  Biography and other information on Professor Shannon