IILJ - Key Persons
Aidan McGirr graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State University, with a degree in
Astrophysics and a minor in Global Health. He was a Flinn Scholar at ASU, where he also co-
founded a refugee medical clinic in partnership with ASU and the Mayo Clinic. Aidan received
Job Titles:
- Alberico Gentili Senior Fellow
Job Titles:
- Professor at ITAM 's Law Department
A full time Professor at ITAM's Law Department, Alejandro Rodiles teaches public international law as well as law and global governance. He earned his law degree (LL.B.) from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He completed his doctoral studies (summa cum laude) at Humboldt University, Berlin. In June 2016, his PhD thesis was awarded the Faculty Prize of the Faculty of Law of Humboldt University. From the thesis he developed his book Coalitions of the Willing and International Law published in 2018 by Cambridge University Press; this work was awarded with the European Society of International Law (ESIL) Book Prize . Before returning to ITAM in 2024, Professor Rodiles from 2022-24 held a Chair at the University of Jena in Germany. Earlier he was also a Senior Associate Fellow in the "Investigation Group Berlin-Potsdam (KFG): International Rule of Law - Rise or Decline?", a lecturer at UNAM's Faculty of Law, and a research fellow at Humboldt University. He is a member of the International Law Association (ILA, Mexican Branch), participating in ILA's Study Groups on UN sanctions, as well as on cities and international law. He is also a member of the scientific advisory board of the Mexican Yearbook of International Law (AMDI).
Alejandro Rodiles was the legal adviser of the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the United Nations, in New York, during Mexico's past non-permanent membership in the UN Security Council (2009-2010). Previously, he served as director of international law at the Office of the Legal Adviser at the Mexican Foreign Ministry, and as junior adviser at the Policy Planning Staff of the Foreign Minister.
His research interests lie in international treaty law, international security law, infrastructure, resilience, and 'planetary' issues, as well as the role of national courts in the development of international law. He is also interested in Mexican foreign policy and its relation with international law. His research focus has been on the ways international law is changing today because of global governance, in particular on the interplay between formal (classical) international law and informal transnational normative regimes. He is actively involved in the InfraReg project of the NYU IILJ.
Alissa Clarke graduated cum laude from Harvard in 2007, with a concentration in psychology and a certificate in global health and health policy. She most recently worked as a Human Rights Fellow for U.S. Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts in his district office, focusing on human rights and refugee policy.
Alissa has worked in health law as Special Assistant to a former U.S. Assistant Surgeon General, in emergency medicine research and in direct patient care at a leading psychiatric hospital. Ultimately, her work with torture survivors applying for asylum in the U.S. inspired her to pursue the law.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Post - Doctoral Global Fellow
Alon is a Post-Doctoral Global Fellow affiliated with the Institute for International Law and Justice (IILJ). Alon is interested in the role of infrastructure as a legal term and the history of regulation. At NYU, Alon will investigate the EU's efforts to extend its regulatory reach beyond its borders, particularly in digitalization and global value chains (GVCs). By examining EU transnational investment policies, digitalization regulations, and "critical" laws, his research will shed light on the EU's influence on global infrastructures and the associated democratic implications.
Job Titles:
- Program Director / Adjunct Professor of Law
Job Titles:
- Director
- Secretary
- Director of the Institute for International Law and Justice
- Professor
Job Titles:
- Alberico Gentili Senior Fellow
Benjamin Straumann is ERC Professor of History at the University of Zurich and Research Professor of Classics at New York University. He is also Alberico Gentili Senior Fellow at New York University School of Law. A historian of ideas, he is chiefly interested in classical political and legal thought, the history of natural and international law, constitutionalism, and the reception of classical political thought and Roman law in early-modern Europe. Benjamin is the author of Crisis and Constitutionalism: Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2016); Roman Law in the State of Nature: The Classical Foundations of Hugo Grotius' Natural Law (Cambridge University Press, 2015); and editor, with Benedict Kingsbury, of Alberico Gentili, The Wars of the Romans: A Critical Edition and Translation of De armis Romanis, (translated by David Lupher, Oxford University Press, 2011). He co-edits the book series History and Theory of International Law for Oxford University Press. He also co-edits the first volume on the classical world of the five-volume Cambridge History of Rights. Benjamin is currently working on a five-year project hosted by the University of Zurich on Cicero's theory of justice and its reception in the Western tradition. The project is supported by an ERC Consolidator Grant (864309) and will focus on one of the most innovative, and historically most influential, contributions to the Western debate about justice, a contribution that grew out of Cicero's philosophical works and Roman legal ideas. For publications and more information, go to: https://nyu.academia.edu/BenjaminStraumann
Bhavini Sai Kakani studied International Relations and Economics at New York University, graduating cum laude in 2018 and again in 2019 with a master's degree under the accelerated B.A.-M.A. track. Her undergraduate honors thesis, for which she received the Fiona McGillivray Prize for Best Thesis in International Political Economy, analyzed the impact of globalization on German labor markets and anti-globalization rhetoric in the rise of populism. Her master's thesis analyzed utopian themes in Cold War-era political projects-like the World Order Models Project-and novels-like Le Guin's the Dispossessed. While at NYU, Bhavini also interned at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs at the United Nations, where she helped NGOs working to alleviate the inequalities of globalization and climate change achieve consultative status.
In 2019, Bhavini moved to Beijing to study Chinese literature and culture at the Yenching Academy of Peking University. Her master's thesis examined how Third World revolutionary movements and solidarity were expressed in transnational literary journals during the Cold War. Bhavini's prevailing research interests include the history of international relations and 20th century anticolonial movements. Returning to NYU as an IILJ scholar, Bhavini hopes to explore actionable ways of continuing the work of decolonization, focusing specifically on international institutions and climate justice.
Brian King focuses his practice on commercial and treaty arbitration and is recognized as a "global player" in the field. He has acted as counsel or arbitrator in over 100 institutional and ad hoc arbitrations, including two of the largest investment arbitrations to date.
Carlos Andrés is a JSD student from Colombia. His research interests include environmental law, human rights, multiculturalism, and governance. Carlos Andrés holds a LLM on International Legal Studies from NYU Law, where he was a Hauser Global Scholar. He also has a J.D. from Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia), where he graduated as cum laude, and a B.A. in Political Science from the same university.
He worked as a researcher in the Global Justice and Human Rights Program at Universidad de los Andes on issues about race, access to law, and discrimination. After that, he was a researcher at the Center for the Study of Law, Justice and Society-Dejusticia working with indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, environmental issues, and anti-discrimination cases in different countries in Latin America. He also works as legal advisor at the Racial Discrimination Watch, dealing with issues about racial inequality and law. His interests on multiculturalism and human rights are reflected as well on the Centro de Información de la Consulta Previa, where he worked as coordinator collecting and organizing legal and political strategies to protect indigenous rights. More recently he worked on a joint project of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and the Columbia Center for Sustainable Investment about participation and extractivism in Latin America. Before joining NYU Law, he was Lecturer on Environmental Law at Universidad de los Andes.
Caroline Zielinski graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 2015 with a degree in International Relations and a minor in Hispanic Studies. Interested in international security and organizations, her thesis focused on cooperation between the European Union and the United Nations on international security threats, as per the EU's commitment to effective multilateralism stipulated in the 2003 European Security Strategy. During her undergraduate career, she conducted research about the challenges facing European think tanks, interned for the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, and served as online editor for the Sigma Iota Rho Journal of International Relations.
Job Titles:
- Professor
- Professor of Clinical Law / Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Post - Doctoral Fellow
Darina Petrova is a Post-Doctoral Fellow affiliated with the Institute for International Law and Justice. Her research explores the mechanisms of global governance and the outcomes that they produce, employing the analytical frameworks of critical legal studies and science and technology studies (STS).
Darina obtained her doctoral degree from Sciences PO Law School. Her doctoral dissertation examined how the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) legitimized its members as a community of developed nations, created cause-and-effect narratives accepted as 'common sense' in global governance, and influenced various fields of international law. Her post-doctoral research at the University of Helsinki delved into the legal dynamics underpinning green development by examining Nordic investments in wind energy in the Global South. At NYU, Darina's research will focus on the BRICS project and its implications for international law and global governance.
Previously, she has been a visiting researcher at Harvard Law School and the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights. She has taught public international law at Sciences PO and seminars on sustainability in global governance at the University of Helsinki. Prior to academia, Darina worked as a Legal Analyst at the OECD Environment Directorate's Unit for Accession and Global Relations and interned at the UN Department of Political Affairs and the International Court of Justice.
David Malone is UN Under-Secretary General, Rector of the United Nations University, and Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Law and Justice. A Canadian national, Dr. Malone holds a BAA from l'École des Hautes Études Commerciales (Montreal); an Arabic Language Diploma from the American University (Cairo); an MPA from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; and a DPhil in International Relations from Oxford University.
Prior to joining the United Nations University, Dr. Malone served (2008-2013) as President of Canada's International Development Research Centre, a funding agency that supports policy-relevant research in the developing world. Dr. Malone previously served as Canada's Representative to the UN Economic and Social Council and as Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations (1990-1994); as Director General of the Policy, International Organizations and Global Issues Bureaus within Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT, 1994-1998); as President of the International Peace Academy (now International Peace Institute), a New York-based independent research and policy development institution (1998-2004); as DFAIT Assistant Deputy Minister for Global Issues (2004-2006); and as Canada's High Commissioner to India, and non-resident Ambassador to Bhutan and Nepal (2006-2008).
Dr. Malone also has held research posts at the Economic Studies Program, Brookings Institution; Massey College, University of Toronto; and Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University. He has been a Guest Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, an Adjunct Professor at the New York University School of Law, and a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University.
Dr. Malone has published extensively. His recent books include Does the Elephant Dance?: Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy (2011, Oxford University Press); Nepal in Transition: From People's War to Fragile Peace (co-editor, 2012, Cambridge University Press); International Development: Ideas, Experience, and Prospects (co-editor, 2014, Oxford University Press); The UN Security Council in the 21st Century (co-editor, 2015, Lynne Rienner Publishers); The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy (co-editor, 2015, Oxford University Press); and Law and Practice of the United Nations (co-authored graduate textbook, 2nd edition 2016, Oxford University Press).
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Clinical Law
Job Titles:
- Research Fellow at Edinburgh Law School
Dimitri Van Den Meerssche is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Edinburgh Law School, working on a UKRI Future Leaders project titled ‘Infra-Legalities - Global Security Infrastructures, Artificial Intelligence and International Law' (led by Gavin Sullivan). He is also an Associate Fellow at the T.M.C. Asser Institute, where he previously worked as postdoctoral researcher. Dimitri holds a PhD and an LLM in International Law from the European University Institute, an LLM degree from New York University School of Law as Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF) Fellow and a Master of Laws degree from Ghent University (Summa Cum Laude). In the context of his doctorate, Dimitri worked at the World Bank Legal Vice-Presidency and the London School of Economics.
Dimitri's current research focuses on how algorithmic decision-making tools are reshaping the law and practice of global governance - particularly in the domain of border control. As an international legal scholar, his work is also inspired by critical security studies, actor-network theory and science & technology studies. His prior doctoral research explored the institutional practices of legality in the World Bank. Dimitri's work appeared in the Human Rights Law Review, European Journal of International Law, Journal of the History of International Law, Leiden Journal of International Law, International Organisations Law Review, London Review of International Law, Transnational Legal Theory and Law and Development Review. His first monograph - The World Bank's Lawyers: The Life of International Law as Institutional Practice - is under contract with Oxford University Press.
Dimitri taught courses on International Law, European Union law and Law & Development at the Free University of Amsterdam, the Brussels School of International Studies (Kent University), and the London School of Economics. He is a founding committee member of the ESIL Interest Group on International Law and Technology, a project team member of the workshop series on Artificial Intelligence and the International Rule of Law (at Edinburgh Law School) and the convenor of the Asser Lecture and Workshop Series on Method, Methodology and Critique in International Law. He serves as a rapporteur for the OXIO database and as Managing Editor of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law. Dimitri is able to work in English, Dutch and French.
Dr. Doreen Lustig received her JSD from NYU School of Law in 2012. She is now an Associate Professor at Tel Aviv University, Buchmann Faculty of Law. She is a graduate of Tel Aviv University (B.A. Sociology and Anthropology, LL.B. Law) and NYU Law School (LL.M., J.S.D.). In 2004-2005, she clerked for The Honorable Eliezer Rivlin, Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel. She is a winner of the 2005 Hauser Research Scholar Fellowship, a former Institute of International Law and Justice Fellow, and a winner of the 2019 Zeltner Prize in the category of junior legal scholar. Lustig is the Chief Editor of the Tel Aviv U. Law Review and a Member of the Editorial Board of the European Journal of International Law.
Lustig's primary research and teaching interests include the history and theory of international law, political economy and the law of democracy. Her other areas of interests are comparative constitutional history, regulation and global governance. Representative publications are: Veiled Power: The History of International Law and the Private Business Corporation, 1886 - 1980 (OUP, 2020); 'Judicial Review in the Contemporary World: Retrospective and Prospective' 16 ICON 315-372 (2018) (w/ J.H.H Weiler); and 'Monopolizing War: Codifying the Laws of War to Reassert Governmental Authority, 1856-1874' (forthcoming, with co-author Eyal Benvenisti).
Job Titles:
- Professor at the University of Bristol Law School
- Senior Global Research Fellow
Eirik Bjorge is a Professor at the University of Bristol Law School.
Eytan Tepper is a post-doctoral Global Fellow affiliated with the Institute for International Law and Justice. His research project at NYU is part of his research agenda on space governance and it builds on his previous research conducted at McGill University's Institute of Air and Space Law.
The institutions and treaties at the core of space governance are Cold War remnants in dire need of reconceptualization and modern theoretical underpinnings. Dr. Tepper's research at McGill analyzed the architecture of space governance using international relations and political economy theories. It demonstrated that space governance is on track to become polycentric, as multiple, issue-specific, governance centers led by stakeholders and experts emerge to fill the gap left by the gridlock at the main multilateral institutions. His research at NYU will take the next step and focus on one such emerging governance center.
The research at NYU will study a case of an issue-areas in global affairs in which there is scarce multilateral regulation and instead effective rules are made by the combination of States' unilateral actions and private ordering, almost skipping multilateralism. The result, what Dr. Tepper calls ‘global governance without multilateralism', raises questions on the place of such a governance system within international law and the availability of standards for such a system. The case study for this research is the governance of space resources and the mining thereof. The regulation and governance of this issue-area is emerging as a combination of national laws that recognize the right to mine and private ordering of the operation of mining and further utilization of the resources. The research will explore whether global administrative law (GAL) and the ‘law of global governance' set standards for such governance systems and by that both constrain and legitimize them.
Dr. Tepper's academic education is multidisciplinary. Prior to his doctoral studies at McGill University's Faculty of Law he earned a policy-oriented doctorate from China University of Political Science and Law focused on Chinese space policy, a master's degree in law from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a double bachelor's degree in law and economics from Tel Aviv University.
Prior to his return to academe, Dr. Tepper's career spanned the private and public sectors, notably working for the Bank of Israel and the Israeli Foreign Trade Administration resolving issues related to international trade and cooperation. He reported directly to the highest ranks of public administration, including the Minister of the Economy and Industry and the Parliament's Finance Committee. He led a formal inquiry delegation to China under the WTO rules and co-authored the feasibility study on a China-Israel Free Trade Area Agreement. Dr. Tepper also worked in the private sector, notably consulting international corporations on their legal affairs in Israel, including Fortune 500 companies (e.g. Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Merck, Eli Lilly). He is former Vice-Chairman of the Israeli Bar Association's Economic Forum. He brings his experience in senior level administration to his academic work seeking to identify and expand cutting-edge theory that withstands real-world constraints.
Job Titles:
- Global Fellow Sebastián
- Global Research Fellow
- Loevy Visiting Scholar Fernando
Fernando Lusa Bordin's research focuses on topics of public international law, including international legal theory, law-making, the law of international organizations, international dispute settlement, the law on the use of force and international investment law. His monograph, The Analogy between States and International Organizations, was published by Cambridge University Press and received the 2020 Certificate of Merit in a Specialized Area of International Law from the American Society of International Law. He is currently an Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Cambridge University.
Prior to taking his post in Cambridge, Fernando received an LL.B. (with honours) from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), an LL.M. from NYU School of Law (where he was a Grotius Scholar), the Diploma of Public International Law from the Hague Academy of International Law and a PhD from the University in Cambridge (for which he received the Yorke Prize). He served as Assistant to Professor Giorgio Gaja at the International Law Commission in the summers of 2009 and 2011, and as Judicial Fellow (law clerk) to Judge Cançado Trindade at the International Court of Justice between 2009 and 2010. He also worked as Research Associate to Professor James Crawford in 2014, and served as Junior Counsel for Mauritius in the Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration (Mauritius v UK).
Job Titles:
- Professor of Law / Director, Intesa Sanpaolo Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law
Job Titles:
- Wilf Family Professor of Property Law
Galia Popov graduated in 2019 from the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied International Relations and Asian Studies and was awarded departmental honors for her thesis on Chinese nationalism and science fiction. Prior to graduation, she spent two semesters studying and working abroad in Beijing, followed by an internship at the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai. She also spent time in Germany and Bulgaria, visiting family and working on her primary hobby, Olympic-style weightlifting. After graduation, she moved to The Hague and obtained a MSc in International Organization from Leiden University, where her research focused on the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative in Bulgaria. At NYU, Galia hopes to pursue international law with a focus on immigration.
Job Titles:
- Law and Vice Dean for Global Programs
Isabelle Glimcher was born and raised in New York City, and received her bachelor's degree in Social Studies from Harvard University in 2013. While there, she focused on issues of international law, human rights, and modern political philosophy, and worked for the Center for International Development at the Kennedy School. Her senior thesis explored the theoretical boundaries of the relationship between the state and the citizen. Building on previous work with the International Rescue Committee, Isabelle then attended Oxford University, where she earned a master's degree in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Her master's thesis explored the administration of law and order in a Ghanaian refugee camp. Since then, Isabelle has served as a paralegal in a trial division of the New York County District Attorney's Office. At NYU, she plans to explore international criminal law, humanitarian law, refugee law, and national security law.
Kofi Annan, then Secretary-General of the UN, and Benedict Kingsbury, now Director of the IILJ, in 2004.
Job Titles:
- Malone Senior Fellow Sebastián
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor
- Professor
Rita Hauser '59, benefactor of the Hauser Global Law School program, and the late Thomas Franck, founder of the IILJ.
Job Titles:
- Fellow Alejandro
- Fellow Gabriele
Job Titles:
- Professor of Trade Regulation