Professor Christa Laser is featured in The SEP Couch with Tim Polmann, a podcast focusing on standard essential patents. Standard essential patents (SEPs) are patents that claims an invention that must be used to comply with a technical standard, and thus implicate the ability of companies and users to achieve interoperability. For example, all USB ports and cords work together, regardless of the manufacturer.

On the podcast, Professor Laser discusses her history of representing companies in SEP litigation, including the role of injunctions. She also discusses her transition from practice to her current role as a law professor at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, as well as career challenges she faced as a woman and a mother.

The video of the podcast can be viewed below.

Professor Milena Sterio participated in the American Society of International Law – Midwest Interest Group Workshop on January 28th.  Professor Sterio presented her paper, “The Ongwen ICC Case: How to Punish a Victim-Perpetrator?”  In her paper, Professor Sterio discusses the recent International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecution of Dominic Ongwen, a Lord’s Resistance Army leader who had been abducted as a child by the LRA but later rose through its ranks, became a leader, and committed numerous atrocities.  Ongwen was convicted by the ICC and sentenced to twenty-five years imprisonment.  Professor Sterio discusses whether Ongwen’s sentence was appropriate and whether it adequately took into account Ongwen’s status as both a child soldier/victim and also perpetrator.

Professor Milena Sterio served as peer reviewer for the International Journal of Cultural Property, a Cambridge University Press publication.  Professor Sterio reviewed an article about the ICC Al Mahdi case, in which the ICC convicted the defendant of crimes of destruction of cultural property committed in the Timbuktu region of Mali. 

Professor Milena Sterio’s article, Globalization, State Sovereignty, and the Development of International Criminal Law, will be published by the George Washington International Law Review in its spring edition.  Professor Sterio will participate in the Journal’s upcoming Symposium, on March 18, 2002, on the topic of “The State of the Nation-State.”  

Professor Milena Sterio moderated a panel discussion at the City Club of Cleveland on January 26, 2022, on the topic of “Human Trafficking: The Intersection of Race, Gender, and the Law.”  The panel discussion focused on the subject of human and sex trafficking, and how the current legal framework applicable to trafficking, at the state and national levels, could be re-conceptualized so that trafficking victims are not also subjects of criminal prosecution and punishment.

Newsweek Magazine quoted Clinical Professor of Law, Doron Kalir, regarding the new Supreme Court pick by President Biden. The article, which explores the political ramifications of a possible appointment, suggests that a Supreme Court seat may carry implications long beyond the Court itself. 

On Wednesday, January 26, the Plain Dealer published Professor Doron Kalir’s op-ed on Constitutional Supremacy and the Texas abortion law (known as SB.8). The op-ed is titled, “Sotomayor is right – the high court has a duty to defend Constitution’s supremacy.” Professor Kalir argues that Justice Sotomayor was correct in her admonition of the Supreme Court’s refusal — for the fourth time in a row — to block SB.8 despite its being “patently unconstitutional.” 

Professor Milena Sterio contributed an article titled “U.S. Recognition Practice: Realism, Legitimacy, or Pragmatism?” to the George Mason International Law Journal.  Professor Sterio’s article was an invited contribution; she had presented an earlier draft of this article at the George Mason International Law Journal’s symposium on the topic of “The New U.S. Recognition Policy” in December 2021.

Professor Milena Sterio moderated a panel titled “Civil Society Documentation: Use of Digital Evidence in International Courts” on January 21. The panel was hosted by the Public International Law and Policy Group and it focused legal issues related the use of digital evidence by various international criminal courts.  A recording of the panel is available here: 

https://www.publicinternationallawandpolicygroup.org/digital-evidence-international-courts-roundtable

Professor Karin Mika served as a grader for the briefs in the Stetson International Environmental Moot Court Competition.