As part of its Advisory Committee Meeting, the CCHR will present a panel discussion entitled “The Obama Administration’s Record on Human Rights and Terrorism: The First Sixty Days”. Panelists include Steven M. Watt, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program and graduate of the Center for Civil and Human Rights LL.M. program and Doug Cassel, Director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights. The presentation will begin at 3:00 p.m. and will be held in the Faculty Meeting Room (Room 2130) in the Eck Hall of Law. Read More

The Hispanic Law Students Association at Notre Dame Law School celebrated excellence in the Hispanic legal community with the 14th annual Graciela Olivarez Award ceremony. The May 21 event took place in Notre Dame’s Eck Hall of Law. Read More

Notre Dame Law School’s Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy is hosting a symposium that will explore the relationship of religion and environmental policy. Read More

Prof. O’Connell Tells NPR: Airstrikes in Pakistan Must Comply with International Law Read More

Douglass Cassel, Notre Dame Professor of Law and director of the Law School’s Center for Civil and Human Rights (CCHR), and Sean O’Brien, Assistant Director of the CCHR and concurrent assistant professor of law, are in Guatemala this week to learn more about alleged human rights abuses by a mining company in that country. Read More

One unprecedented result of President Obama’s decision to abolish restrictions on funding for human embryonic stem cell research is that the U.S. government now compels taxpayers to promote research involving the creation, use and destruction of human embryos, according to O. Carter Snead, associate professor of law at the University of Notre Dame. Read More

Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law Mary Ellen O’Connell was recently named Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. O’Connell will retain her position at the Law School, which she has held since 2005. Read More

Notre Dame Professor of Law Vincent Rougeau was invited to participate in one of London’s best-known forums—The Cheapside Debates—on Tuesday, March 10 at the St. Mary le Bow Church. The Cheapside Debates form a regular program of nine debates each year on matters of public and faith interest, usually chaired by the Reverend Jeremy Caddick, dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Read More

Douglass Cassel, Notre Dame Professor of Law and director of the Law School’s Center for Civil and Human Rights, says the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) issuance of an arrest warrant today for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir “may have serious diplomatic consequences, as several African governments have publicly suggested that they may reassess their support for the ICC if the warrant issues.” This is the first-ever arrest warrant for a sitting head of state issued by the ICC. Bashir was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Read More

Notre Dame Law School alumnus Max Siegel and leader of Baker & Daniels LLP’s sports and entertainment industry team has been named to the Board of Directors for USA Track & Field. Read More

Mary Ellen O’Connell, Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law, applauded yesterday’s announcement that the Justice Department would move the case of the only enemy combatant to be held on American soil, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, into a civilian criminal court. Read More

The Supreme Court’s 9-0 decision today (Feb. 25, 2009) in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum states that the government, when speaking on behalf of itself, is allowed to control its own message, and is not necessarily required to invite private speakers to join the conversation. “The Free Speech Clause, in other words, prevents the government from regulating or discriminating against private expression; it does not regulate the content of the government’s own speech,” explains Notre Dame Professor of Law Richard Garnett. Read More

The Supreme Court decided today that Pleasant Grove, Utah, is not legally required to permit a religious group to erect a display in a city park which already features a monument to the Ten Commandments. Read More

Notre Dame Professor of Law Richard Garnett participates in Villanova University School of Law’s third annual John F. Scarpa Conference on Law, Politics, and Culture today, Feb. 19. The conference title is “Liberty of Conscience and Religious Equality.” Read More

Prof. Paolo Carozza, president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), was in Strasbourg on Jan. 30 at the invitation of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to deliver remarks on the occasion of the Court’s 50th anniversary. Read More

The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies will present the prestigious Paul M. Bator Award to Notre Dame Professor of Law Nicole Garnett. The award recognizes a young academic—under the age of 40— who has demonstrated excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact. Read More

According to Notre Dame Professor of Law Richard Garnett, President Obama’s decision to continue allowing faith-based agencies to receive public funds for their social-welfare services is welcome and correct. Garnett praised the President for rejecting the argument of some of his supporters that this policy violates the Constitution’s religious-freedom guarantees. Writes Garnett: Read More

Wolfgang Kaleck, a German human rights lawyer, will discuss the cases he has filed in German and French courts against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials for their roles in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. His presentation, “The Case for War Crimes Prosecution of Donald Rumsfeld et al.,” is Tuesday, Feb. 10 at noon in room 1130. Read More

Six 2L and 3L students will engage in pro bono work in Appalachia over spring break, March 8-14. The Law School’s Pro Bono at Notre Dame Program organized the trip in conjunction with the Appalachia Seminar of the Notre Dame Center for Social Concerns.

Law students will work with the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund of Kentucky (AppalReD)—the umbrella legal services organization for Eastern Kentucky—to implement a pilot program of legal assistance to pro se litigants in various Eastern Kentucky counties. Students will travel to several counties where they will meet with AppalReD clients—under the direction of AppalReD attorneys—to provide legal information and to help clients prepare pleadings to file in Kentucky courts, primarily in family law cases. Read More

University of Notre Dame Professor of Law Richard Garnett was recently in Rome as a guest of the Embassy of the United States of America to the Holy See. He joined other leading scholars as a presenter at a conference celebrating the 25th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the central government of the Catholic Church. Read More

Prof. Douglass Cassel’s commentaries on human rights are broadcast weekly on Chicago Public Radio. Listen to his latest: Read More

By signing last week’s executive order repealing the ban on U.S. funding for foreign family planning aid groups which offer abortion services, President Obama lost a vast stretch of common ground with millions of Americans, according to O. Carter Snead, associate professor of law in the University of Notre Read More

In an article titled, “The Pitfalls of International Law,” The Washington Independent reports on the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza and examines the trouble with enforcing international law in that situation. The article quotes Notre Dame Professor of Law Mary Ellen O’Connell: Read More

Peter W. Thornton, professor emeritus of law in the University of Notre Dame Law School, died Jan. 19 in Santa Barbara, Calif.He was 90 years old. p. Thornton taught law at Notre Dame from 1968 to 1993, interrupting his tenure from 1973 to 1976 to serve as founding dean Read More

Listen to Professor Garnett’s comments about the role religion plays in the U.S today and if he foresees any changes with this incoming administration. Read More

Plenty of heavy lifting took place at the Notre Dame Law School in December and the first week of January.

Much of it involved moving new furniture and equipment into the Eck Hall of Law, an 85,000-square-foot building that is the new home to most of the school’s faculty, students and staff. Read More

On Thursday, Jan. 22 at 7:30 p.m. in the Jordan Auditorium of the Mendoza College of Business, Notre Dame Law Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell will serve as respondent to John Cavadini, chair of the Notre Dame theology department and director of the Institute for Church Life, who will give the inaugural Blessed Basil Moreau Lecture. Read More

Professor of Law Richard Garnett is in Rome this week as a guest of the Embassy of the United States of America to the Holy See. He joins other leading scholars as a presenter at a conference celebrating the 25th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the central government of the Catholic Church. Read More

NDLS Classes Resume Jan. 12, 2009

The University of Notre Dame Law School will be closed Christmas Eve until Jan. 5, 2009, when faculty and staff return. Classes begin Monday, Jan. 12, in the new Eck Hall of Law—a three-story, 85,000-square-foot building that is on the site of the former campus post office. Eck Hall will be composed primarily of a new moot courtroom, classrooms and faculty offices. Read More

The 32-page document on bioethical issues issued last week by the Vatican reemphasized the Catholic Church’s moral opposition to in-vitro fertilization, human cloning and embryonic stem cell research. p. The document, whose title,“Dignitas Personae,”is Latin for"the dignity of a person,"was issued by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of Read More