International and Comparative Law
An increasingly globalized world poses an unprecedented number of challenges and opportunities for the legal profession. States and individuals frequently have recourse to international law as a means of seeking redress for wrongs. At the same time, more private companies utilize avenues of transnational commerce and trade, subjecting themselves to a panoply of national laws and regulatory regimes.
- Washington University Law students around the globe.
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These developments have created a new role within the legal profession: the international lawyer. International criminal tribunals around the world employ prosecutors, defense counsel and support attorneys. Commercial litigators find themselves arguing foreign or multi-jurisdictional law before international arbitrators and U.S. and foreign courts alike. Transactional lawyers find that their clients demand counselors who are fluent in multiple legal systems.
Meanwhile, traditionally domestic U.S. lawyers find their practices steadily taking on an international flavor. Estate planners take advantage of different national tax, trust and property regimes to provide for their heirs. State and federal courts hear examples from foreign jurisdictions in their application of U.S. and international law. U.S. diplomatic initiatives result in a proliferation of treaties, especially in trade in goods and services, with application to U.S. clients.
The law school prepares its students for practice in this global legal environment. Whether our graduates plan to practice private or public international law or develop a local portfolio, we recognize that every lawyer must be equipped to practice law across international boundaries.
Our world-class faculty includes experts in international criminal law and international development law, as well as regional experts in national systems outside of the United States. Even our domestic-law specialists routinely speak and teach abroad and compare U.S. and foreign approaches in their lectures and writings.
Students come from all over the world to the law school, studying for the Juris Doctor or Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree. The school of law offers a broad curriculum and large number of student opportunities to enhance the international flavor and transnational character of the legal education.
Outside of the classroom, our students routinely work in internships and positions overseas and study abroad, either during the school year or in our annual Summer Institute for Global Justice in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
The focal point for the law school’s comparative, international and transnational programming is the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. The Harris Institute hosts conferences, sponsors guest lectures, and works with faculty and students to focus school, university and community resources on areas of common interest.
