Professor Mark Sundahl was recently appointed to Hague Space Resources Governance Working Groupto participate in an international effort to explore an international approach to regulating the extraction of natural resources from the Moon and other celestial bodies.  The Working Group was created by the International Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University in the Netherlands to address the legal issues that promise to arise as private companies (as well as governments) move forward with plans to harvest precious metals from near-Earth asteroids and extract water and other natural resources needed to support a permanent human presence on the Moon and Mars.

On October 14, Professors Carole Heyward and Carolyn Broering-Jacobs presented at the Southern Clinical Conference at the Charlotte Law School in Charlotte, North Carolina.  The title of their talk was Creating Assessment Tools for Faculty, Students, and Site Supervisors. During the workshop, Professors Heyward and Broering-Jacobs explored ways to assess student performance at project, course, and program levels using self-evaluation, peer evaluation, and faculty evaluation. They discussed ways that peer- and self-assessment tools can be used most effectively, proposed methods for creating assessment instruments, and described how these tools could be converted into feedback instruments as well.  Before the workshop, they conducted a survey of clinical and externship faculty to gather information about their use of various assessment tools.  At the start of the workshop, Professors Hayward and Broering-Jacobs shared the results of their survey and used the results as a starting point for discussion of assessment opportunities and tools.

Professor Emeritus Jim Wilson was quoted in a blog published in The Wall Street Journal entitled “What Law Professors Would Say to Students About Trump’s Win.”  The blog is available here.  Professor Wilson’s quote, which was also reprinted in Crain’s Cleveland Business, available here, is reproduced directly below:

Our community is very fractured right now. The ruling class seems to have gone overboard when utilizing its fundamental tool of “divide and conquer,” and many members of both factions are filled with self-righteous fury. Somehow, people of good will from both sides (and there are people of good will on both sides) must overcome these understandable emotions to band together to create a more decent society that addresses the serious problems our species face throughout the world. This election may create the space for new coalitions to form. There is always a place for friendship and reciprocity.

Professor and Associate Dean Milena Sterio presented at the American Society of International Law Midyear Meeting and Research Forum at the University of Washington, Seattle, on November 12.  Professor Sterio’s paper, which was chosen from a competitive call for papers, was entitled “Secession: Proposal for a New Legal Framework.”

Professor Candice Hoke has published an article entitled “Election integrity: Missing components to remedy” on The Hill, a prestigious Congress blog on legislation and policy.  Professor Hoke’s article is available here. 

Professor Ken Kowalski participated as a panelist in the WCPN/90.3 morning show, “The Sound of Ideas,” on November 7th.  The show focused on age discrimination in the work place, and in addition to Professor Kowalski, other panelists included Barbara Danforth, CEO, Summit Academy School, Elissa Perry, Professor of Psychology and Education, Columbia University, and Doug Tayek, Associate State Director of Outreach, AARP Ohio.  More information, including an audio and video of this episode of “The Sound of Ideas” is available here.

Prof. Mark Sundahl chaired the meeting of the International Space Policy Working Group at the biannual meeting of the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) on October 26 in Washington, D.C.  The COMSTAC meeting draws leading space figures from industry, government and academia to provide advice and direction for the FAA’s regulation of commercial spaceflight.  Prof. Sundahl’s working group made recommendations to the FAA regarding a number of current issues facing the space industry, including export controls, radio spectrum allocation, and UN efforts to ensure the long-term sustainability of space activity in the face of environmental hazards, such as space debris.  A video of the meeting can be watched here.

Professor and Associate Dean Milena Sterio presented at International Law Weekend, an annual international law conference, jointly sponsored by the American Branch of the International Law Association (ABILA) and the International Law Students’ Association (ILSA).  The conference took place at the Association of the Bar of New York City and at Fordham Law School.  Professor Sterio presented on two different panels on October 29.  Professor Sterio presented on a panel entitled “Current Failures and Future Prospects for Addressing the Crisis in Syria.”  In addition, Professor Sterio organized and moderated a panel on October 29, entitled “ICTY Convicts Karadzic: A Roundtable Discussion About a New Interpretation of Genocide?”  Finally, Professor Sterio was elected to the Board of Directors of ABILA; she will begin serving her term in 2017.

On September 27th, Prof. Mark Sundahl served as co-chair of a panel examining the legal issues surrounding the nascent asteroid mining industry.  The panel was part of the International Astronautical Congress, the primary annual space industry conference which was held this year in Guadalajara, Mexico.  Prof. Sundahl’s panel followed on the heels of Elon Musk unveiling his plan to colonize Mars over the next 50 to 100 years. The speakers on the panel represented a diverse array of perspectives and, after over three hours of presentations and discussions, a general consensus emerged recognizing the legality of private asteroid mining activities under existing international law.