Degrees
Overview
International legal issues will be central to the practice of law and the resolution of major global problems throughout the 21st century. New York University School of Law’s international law program provides students with unsurpassed preparation for these challenges and opportunities. The globally acclaimed faculty at NYU School of Law includes many leading figures who involve students in their work on such issues as global climate change, transitional justice, the juvenile death penalty, human rights including social and economic rights, World Trade Organization disputes, Internet domain name adjudication, and anti-terrorism, among many others.
What makes NYU School of Law special is that these issues are examined not as isolated topics, but as part of an integrated curriculum that deepens understanding of the complex interactions between diverse national, international, and global legal structures and cultures. NYU School of Law is one of very few law schools in the world with the capacity to make such a far-reaching, integrated international law program a reality.
The study of international law at NYU is integrally connected with the Law School’s unique Hauser Global Law School Program, which reflects and responds to the interconnections and influences of laws and legal systems of various nations on one another. It encompasses a broad range of topics and extends to informal transnational practices between corporate actors or non-governmental organizations, whether in the reinsurance market, the development of arbitration procedures, or legal aspects of public-private partnerships for AIDS prevention.
International law — and the international law program at the Law School — is a crucial but distinctive part of this larger global enterprise. International law is a long-established formal system for making rules, creating institutions, and settling disputes between countries. Traditional intergovernmental techniques for making and enforcing law between states remain important, even as the new demands of global governance force international lawyers to adapt and remake them. The Law School’s international law faculty are preeminent experts in this central but special component of global law. The international law program’s mission is to impart this distinctive faculty expertise to students in their training to become practitioners, policy-makers, and scholars. Together with faculty, students in the J.D, LL.M. (Masters) and J.S.D. (Doctoral) programs form a community of scholars working on a wide range of current international law issues. The program ensures that students studying diverse global topics also acquire the essential understanding of the larger system of international law in which they are embedded.
At the core of the Law School’s continued innovation in international law is the Institute for International Law and Justice (IILJ) and its affiliated Centers and Programs: the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, the Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law and Justice, and the Program in the History and Theory of International Law. The Institute and Centers bring together an extraordinary set of research programs and specialized degrees. Students are involved in all IILJ activities and actively engage in many other joint student-faculty international law endeavors at the Law School. These include student organizations, journals, and public events in international law to further enrich their education. In addition, NYU School of Law supports students in an incomparable range of internships around the world, as well as funding post-graduation fellowships and clerkships to help students start their careers in international law.
In addition to the J.D., LL.M. and J.S.D. programs, the School has also established two innovative degree programs for students wishing to undertake sustained scholarship across a range of fields related to international law. The J.D.-LL.M. program in international law brings together excellent students to receive specialist training in international law, with a particular emphasis on scholarship and research.
