THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE SELECTS FIVE NYU LAW STUDENTS FOR ITS NEW LAW CLERK/INTERNSHIPS

joan.dim@nyu.edu

-- New Program, designed to assist in handling the Court’s expanding caseload, provides exceptional opportunity for NYU Law School students

New York City (Feb. 4, 2000)—In pursuance of a new program for law clerk/interns, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has awarded five New York University School of Law students and graduates clerkships at the Court. These clerks, selected by the Court from a pool of 13 men and women from 13 countries and five continents, were recommended by the Law School to the Court from a large group of applicants.

The new program—the first of its kind by the ICJ---will extend initially for five years and start in September 2000 with five nine-month positions available annually.

The awardees are:

· Robert Dufresne (Canada) LL.M . International Legal Studies, 2000

· Edda Kristjansdottir (Iceland) J.D., 1998

· Wiebke Ruckert (Germany) LL.M. International Legal Studies, 1998

· Ludivine Tamiotti (France) LL.M. International Legal Studies, 2000

· Jeremy Zucker (U.S.) J.D., 2000

According to the Court’s President, Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, the new law clerk/internship program will “meet a serious and urgent need: to provide the Members of the Court with a pool of highly qualified clerks, drawn from a representative range of nations and legal systems, on which they can draw to assist them in their judicial work. In recent years, the Court’s docket has burgeoned, eighteen new cases having been filed in the last twelve months; the Court requires a kind of assistance which heretofore it has lacked.”

The ICJ selected the awardees from among the Law School’s current J.D. and L.L.M. classes and recent graduates. The foreign university from which each awardee came also supported the nominations. Clerks are fluent in English or French, and in most cases both, and they will represent diverse nations and legal systems.

New York University School of Law is particularly well situated to provide clerks to the World Court, due in large part to its Global Law School Program. This program, begun in 1994, has created at NYU an unparalleled community of legal scholars, jurists, academics, practitioners and students from around the world. The foundation of the program is the global law faculty, which brings up to 20 scholars and academics annually from across the globe to NYU to teach together, learn from one another, and maintain an ongoing dialogue among themselves and with NYU’s domestic faculty and students about the rule of law and its increasing importance in the global community.

Two additional components of the program are the Hauser Global Scholarships and the recently created Global Public Service Scholarships. These scholarships, which cover the cost of tuition, living expenses, and round trip travel, are provided to 25 of the best law graduates in the world, and enable them to spend an academic year studying and working together in conjunction with the global faculty and NYU’s domestic law faculty. Additionally, NYU School of Law provides annual funding for as many as 50 J.D. candidates to work abroad during the summer after their first or second year of study. As a result of these initiatives and others, NYU’s Law School now includes students from more than 50 countries.

The ICJ clerkship adds yet another critical layer to this program. As NYU’s Law School Dean John Sexton put it: “The ICJ is perhaps the best venue for understanding the power of the rule of law in a global context, and this relationship with NYU reflects the Law School’s ongoing commitment to train lawyers as presented by an increasing interconnected and interdependent world.”

The International Court of Justice is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. Its seat is at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands. Under the United Nations Charter, the Court has a dual role: to settle in accordance with international law the legal disputes referred to it by States and to give advisory opinions to duly authorized international organs and agencies. Currently the Court is comprised of 15 judges from Algeria, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Madagascar, the Netherlands, the Russian Federation, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Venezuela.

For more information on the ICJ clerkship program, please contact Professor Norman Dorsen, Faculty Chair of NYU’s Global Law School Program, at 212-998-6233, or Curt Crossley, Director of the Global Public Service Law Project, at 212-998-6222.

02/04/00