Letter from London: Teaching and Scholarship on the Frontiers of Transnational Law

As summer draws to a close, our colleagues “across the pond” at the Center for Transnational Legal Studies (CTLS) in London, England are looking back on a year full of innovative teaching, transformative exchanges and scholarly debates on pressing issues in international and transnational law: the future of trade law, global challenges to the rule of law, national security, access to medicines, constitutional crises, colonial reparations and more.

CTLS, based in the heart of London, is a unique institution for students and scholars interested in international, comparative and transnational law. The center hosts students and faculty from its 21 partner law schools for semester-long stays, and organizes various conferences and events. Georgetown Law is one of the founding members of the consortium. For the past year, Professor Madhavi Sunder from Georgetown Law and Professor Simona Novaretti from the University of Turin School of Law served as co-directors.

Student Highlights

Some 73 students from 13 schools in 12 countries enrolled in CTLS for the fall 2024 semester; another 57 students from 14 schools in 11 countries enrolled this spring.

All students began their semester with a three-day exercise led by Professor Elena D’Alessandro (University of Torino) and Professor Carlos Vázquez (Georgetown): a simulated litigation between citizens of the United States and Spain concerning Nazi-looted art. Students dove right in to research questions such as the jurisdiction of the California courts and the Spanish courts and interpretation of the relevant laws of Spain and California concerning adverse possession, then presented their arguments on behalf of the plaintiffs and defendants. For the rest of each semester, students’ course schedules were divided between core courses that all students take and electives that allow each student to pursue their own interests.

Students had plenty of opportunities to explore London through pub nights, a “Legal London” guided city tour, an end-of-term boat ride on the Thames and opportunities for both mainstream and legal tourism, with visits to the British Museum, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Lloyd’s of London, the Francis Crick Institute, and law firms Clyde & Co and Hogan Lovells LLP.

Some students traveled to Europe as well. Professor Sharon Shakargy of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, with the help of CTLS assistant director Mina Elton, took students in her course on Comparative and Transnational Family Law to Geneva to visit the United Nations, where they met with Professor Daphna Hacker, member of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and had the chance to attend the closing remarks at a committee session.

In the fall, a three-student team headed to Vienna for the 32nd Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot (and to Budapest before that for a pre-moot round). In the spring semester, a five-student team competed in preliminary online rounds of the 17th Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition.

Behind the Books

It was a banner year for author events at CTLS. In the fall, Yale Law Professor Harold Koh, former Dean of Yale Law School and Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State during the Obama Administration, visited to discuss his latest book, The National Security Constitution in the 21st Century. Georgetown Law Professor Anupam Chander, a former student of Koh’s, both guided the conversation and shared a few memories of the lessons he’d learned in Koh’s class years ago.

In March, during what was dubbed “Book Week 2025,” CTLS hosted four book events in succession. Students and other guests heard from University of Chicago Law School Professor Curtis Bradley, author of Historical Gloss and Foreign Affairs: Constitutional Authority in Practice; Georgetown Law Professor Gregory Shaffer, author of The Rule of Law Under Pressure: A Transnational Challenge; a panel of scholars discussing The Entrenchment of Democracy: The Comparative Constitutional Design of Elections, Parties and Voting, a volume of essays edited by Tom Ginsburg, Aziz Huq and Tarunabh Khaitan; and from participants in a conference celebrating the launch of Sunder and co-editor Haochen Sun’s new book, Intellectual Property, Covid-19 and the Next Pandemic.

“Leading scholars see CTLS as a place that hosts important conversations on the frontiers of transnational law,” said Sunder of the diversity of the Book Week programming.

Speakers and Gatherings

Other special events included:

• Two lectures on transnational justice, both held at the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn: Georgetown Law Professor Jennifer Hillman on “Can the Rules-Based Trading System be Saved?: Pulling Back from the Brink” and Stanford University’s Priya Satia on “The Value of Reparations, or the Values of Reparation.”
• A lecture by the UK Information Commissioner, John Edwards.
• A first-of-its-kind workshop, organized by Georgetown Law Professor from Practice Sean Hagan, a former general counsel of the IMF, for current and former general counsels of 13 different international organizations, including the World Bank, NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. In an off-the-record discussion, the participants found much common ground in the issues they face, such as maintaining independence, the permissible scope of interpretation and the overall challenge of managing a legal department.
• The annual CTLS Global Conference, held at the University of Turin on May 22 on the theme “Transnational Law in Transition: Emergent Issues in Public and Private Law.”

Summer Scholars

Each summer, CTLS offers academics the opportunity to apply for summer residencies that allow them to spend several weeks in London for research, collaborations or writing. The 2025 Summer Scholars in Residence were Georgetown Law Professors Stephanie Barclay, Maria Glover, Mark Jia and Mitt Regan, L’85, and National University of Singapore Sheridan Fellow Ming Ren Tan.

For more information on CTLS and their past and upcoming events, register for their e-mail newsletter.