Professor Milena Sterio presented remotely at the Law and Society Global Meeting, which took place in Lisbon, Portugal, on July 13, on the topic of “Enforcing International Justice.”

Professor Milena Sterio presented at the 2022 South East Law Schools’ Association Meeting in Miramar Beach, Florida, on August 1 and August 2.  On August 1, Professor Sterio presented on a panel on the topic of “The War in Ukraine and the Future of Global Order.”  On August 2, Professor Sterio participated on a panel on the topic of “International Collaboration: Navigating the Fulbright Process.”

Professor Milena Sterio presented as a panelist at a Ukraine Knowledge Sharing webinar, organized by the Public International Law and Policy Group, on August 4th, on the topic of Case Building and International Criminal Investigations.  The webinar was organized for the benefit of Ukrainian civil society organizations and representatives from the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Professor Sterio has been working on developing a High Court for War Crimes for Ukaine.  The High Court would be a specialized court within the Ukrainian legal system specialized on the prosecution of war crimes.  Professor Sterio and three of her colleagues involved in the same effort, Professors Paul Williams and Yvonne Dutton and Dean Michael Scharf have co-authored a blog spot on this topic; the blog post is available here: http://opiniojuris.org/2022/07/29/high-war-crimes-court-of-ukraine-for-atrocity-crimes-in-ukraine/

Finally, Professor Sterio published an article with Jurist about the war in Ukraine and various violations of international law that have been committed by Russian forces and Russian leadership during the war.  Professor Sterio’s article is available here: https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2022/07/milena-sterio-russia-war-crimes-ukraine/

Chris Sagers, the James A. Thomas Professor of Law, spoke with the New York Times for a story about the Justice Department’s pending challenge to the merger of publishing firms Penguin-Random-House and Simon & Schuster. The deal would create the largest publisher ever to exist. 

He also spoke about the case on Press Play with Madeleine Brand, a public radio program produced by KCRW, Los Angeles. You can hear the audio clip here.

Earlier, Sagers discussed the case on NPR’s nationally syndicated radio program Here & Now and for a story in Publisher’s Weekly.

Chris Sagers, the James A. Thomas Professor of Law, appeared on NPR’s nationally syndicated public radio program Here & Now, to discuss the Justice Department’s pending challenge to the merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster. You can listen to the segment here. Earlier, Sagers discussed the same case with Publisher’s Weekly.

Sagers also spoke with Bloomberg for a story about the Federal Trade Commission’s new challenge to the acquisition by Meta (Facebook’s parent company) of Within, a virtual reality game developer. Meta already owns the Oculus VR hardware firm and the popular game Beat Saber. It would enter the market for virtual reality fitness applications with Within’s popular exercise product Supernatural. The Commission’s suit alleges that the deal ends likely competition, since without it Meta would have produced fitness applications of its own. 

Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson has been invited to join the Board of Advisors of the Institute for Energy Law.  Law school membership in IEL is by invitation only and based on the law school’s energy law capacity in terms of available courses and faculty expertise.  Robertson’s position on the IEL Board brings with it many benefits for the law school and for students interested in energy law.  For example, with Robertson’s Board position, the law school becomes a member of IEL and will receive IEL publications, the Energy Law Advisor, Oil & Gas E-Report, Young Energy Professionals’ Newsletter,  and The Energy Dispatch.  The law school will also receive access to IEL’s Digital Library, which contains substantive papers produced for IEL conferences. In addition to her own complimentary attendance at IEL’s Annual Energy Law Conference each year, Robertson will be able to nominate up to two students to attend at no cost. 

Chris Sagers, the James A. Thomas Professor of Law, spoke with press outlets recently concerning pending matters in federal antitrust law. He was quoted extensively in a long “tale-of-the-tape” story in Publisher’s Weekly on the Justice Department’s lawsuit challenging the merger or Penguin-Random House and Simon & Schuster, set to go to trial next week.

Sagers was also quoted in a Bloomberg story on the Justice Department’s hiring of veteran antitrust plaintiff’s lawyer Bonny Sweeny, a move that some believe signals the likelihood of major new enforcement actions. 

Professor Laura Hoffman, with a group of other scholars, has published an article in the Boston College Law Review, titled, “Designing an Americans with Abilities Act: Consciousness, Capabilities, and Civil Rights.”

The article discusses the seminal legislation protecting the rights of persons with disabilities, the Americans with Disabilities Act. It highlights the successes as well as shortcomings of the ADA, and takes the next step of proposing a “new piece of legislation that fully incorporates the advanced technology available to individuals, while promoting a more positive understanding of advancing rights and capabilities.” The article describes a “proposed Americans with Abilities Act (AWAA),” designed to “correct the deficiencies in the ADA, ultimately allowing individuals with disabilities to integrate more fully into society.”

The article, which in addition to Professor Hoffman is co-authored by scholars at Yale Law School, Harvard Medical School, the Weill Cornell Medical College, and Penn State Law, is available here.

Dean Lee Fisher spoke to WKYC Channel 3 about the January 6 hearings. Dean Fisher compared the January 6 events to Watergate, noting that Watergate “was a burglary of a little office of the democratic national committee (Watergate). This was an attack on the united states capitol. And while there is some similarities, I think the big difference is that these were acts of violence. It wasn’t some small burglary.”

Dean Fisher also explained that at the hearings, “Most of the witnesses are Republican and have worked for President Trump at the time [of the incident]. That gives it a special layer of creditability.”

Professor Milena Sterio moderated a panel on the topic of “Larfarge: A New Era of Accountability.”  The panel was hosted by the Public International Law & Policy Group and it focused on the recent investigation of a major French company, Lafarge, by French criminal courts, over the company’s alleged complicity in the commission of crimes against humanity in Syria.  The panel recording is available here: https://www.publicinternationallawandpolicygroup.org/expert-roundtable-lafarge

Professor Milena Sterio presented at the International Law Association’s Global Meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, on June 21, on a panel titled “Developments in Atrocity Prevention, Investigation and Prosecution.”  Professor Sterio’s remarks focused on the investigation and possible prosecution of atrocities committed at the hands of the Myanmar leadership against the Rohingya refugees. Earlier this year, in  April 2022, Professor Sterio visited the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where she has been leading a human rights documentation project.