I believe that these factors are constant whether the topic is commitment, the right to refuse treatment, sexual autonomy, deinstitutionalization, any aspect of the criminal trial process, from the determination of competency to stand trial to the ultimate death penalty decision, or the relationship between international human rights law and mental disability law. I am the only law professor in the nation (and most likely, the world) who has created nine different courses in this subject matter; I’ve also written twenty books and nearly 200 articles in this area.

Learn About The Intersection Of Mental Disability And International Human Rights Law

For the past several years, I have refocused my professional career and have turned my attention to the intersection of mental disability law with international human rights law.

• Under the aegis of Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI), a Washington, DC-based human rights advocacy NGO, I have done site visits and conducted mental disability law training workshops in Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Uruguay, and Bulgaria.

• Through New York Law School’s (NYLS) Online Distance Learning Mental Disability Law program, I have taught mental disability law courses in Japan and Nicaragua, and have worked extensively in Nicaragua with local advocates and activists in an effort to build a mental disability advocacy network in that nation: one that could optimally be expanded to other nations in Central and South America. We are currently working with colleagues in China, Japan and East Africa to teach new courses in those nations and forge new partnerships with other law schools and universities.

• Through the International Mental Disability Law Reform Project of the NYLS Justice Action Center, I have done work in Taiwan, Japan, Poland, the Czech Republic, China, and Uganda.

This work has clarified for me the extent of our societal blindness to the ongoing violations of international human rights law in the context of the institutional commitment and treatment of persons with mental disabilities. Notwithstanding a robust set of international law principles, standards and doctrines—many based on American constitutional law decisions and statutory reforms of the past three decades—people with mental disabilities live in some of the harshest conditions that exist in any society. These conditions are the product of neglect, lack of legal protection against improper and abusive treatment, and, primarily, again, the social attitudes that perpetuate stigma, prejudice and stereotyping.

Ever since I began practicing law as a rookie Public Defender in Trenton, NJ, in 1971, I have been aware that we think about and treat persons with mental disabilities in the legal system differently than we do others. Nearly ten years ago, I wrote,“I had grown accustomed to asides, snickers, and comments from judges, to ‘eye rolling’ from my adversaries, to running monologue commentaries by bailiffs and court clerks (all about my clients’ ‘oddness’).” This is still true today.

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A new course I am teaching, “Public International Law Research,” has two innovative aims: to introduce students to hands-on research in the area of public international law, a skill that has not traditionally been taught at many U.S. law schools; and to teach this skill in an interactive, mutually supportive way that also incorporates substantial, timely and progressive feedback to the students. My co-teacher, Mary Ann Archer, is director of reference services at our law library. The course benefits greatly from having an information professional as one of its designers.

Courses in teaching international law research are rare. There are many standard law school lecture courses in Public International Law. Similarly, the standard course in legal writing covers researching methods, but almost always only with regard to U.S. domestic law. Some law librarians at some schools offer international law research instruction in special class sessions of one to three hours. But most law school catalogs fail to offer semester-long courses specifically devoted to researching methods in Public International Law, a failure our course redresses.

Today’s Law Students Need Grounding In International Law

Emphasizing Public International Law Research is compelling for today’s law students. Most directly, globalization and the resultant demographic migration bring the global dimension into areas of the law that had previously been considered only domestic. For example, trans-border adoptions and marriages across ever more diverse cultural lines can import international issues into the U.S. practice of family law. Even small businesses can now consider outsourcing supplies to foreign producers, as well as developing foreign markets. Accordingly, it is more important than ever for a large proportion of law graduates to be familiar with international law.

Additionally, focusing on international law makes law students aware of the U.S. as an actor in the global arena. As more developing countries acquire a worldwide economic presence, our country’s professionals need to be more comfortable and conversant with our role as one economic, commercial and political player among many.

Knowledge of international law shouldn’t be theoretical but practical. Students need to learn it in a hands-on, tactile way that familiarizes them with the actual tools of the trade. To accomplish this, we focus on research skills. Our students learn to find and analyze treaties, opinions of international tribunals and arbitrators, diplomatic correspondence, resolutions and reports of international bodies such as the U.N. and the E.U., and other primary sources.

Non-Traditional Methods Make The Course Interactive

Our second broad aim is to present the course in non-traditional ways that emphasize student interaction, sequential skill-building and progressive feedback, echoing some of the most vital movements currently occurring in U.S. legal education.

For example, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching study, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (2007), criticizes many aspects of contemporary legal education.1 It advocates, inter alia, the integration of doctrinal instruction, the development of practice skills and the inculcation of appropriate professional values and disposition.

In the same year, a study published by the Clinical Legal Education Association, Best Practices for Legal Education, puts forth 12 major recommendations for significant change.2 These recommendations emphasize the need for law schools to prepare their students for law practice, to develop students’ ability to resolve legal problems effectively and responsibly, to use teaching methods that effectively reach desired objectives, and to use meaningful means of assessment.

Our student-centered course addresses many of the concerns described in these studies. The course focuses on student learning through the completion of reading exercises and research problems. The reading exercises deepen students’ understanding and appreciation of the primary sources of Public International Law while the Research Problems test students’ familiarity and facility with available research tools and resources.

Students are invited to work collectively to complete both the reading exercises and the research problems. This helps to simulate many real-life practice situations in which groups of attorneys work in teams. Review of the reading exercises and research problems in class provides timely feedback. And since the units of instruction are arranged sequentially, the subject matter and feedback build progressively throughout the semester. Ms. Archer and I have written a detailed course book containing the exercises, problems and background materials that are the backbone of the course.3

Students who have taken the course give us positive feedback. We have also generated substantial interest at academic conferences where we have delivered presentations describing our methods and materials. We are looking forward to an even greater degree of interest and involvement, both from the legal academy and the practice community, in our perspectives, methods and goals.

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FOOTNOTES

1. Sullivan, William M.; Colby, Anne; Wegner, Judith Welch; Bond, Lloyd & Shulman, Lee S.; Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law; The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, through Jossey-Bass (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), 2007.

2. Stuckey, Roy and Others; Best Practices for Legal Education: A Vision and A Road Map; Clinical Legal Education Association, 2007.

3. Winer, Anthony S. and Archer, Mary Ann E.; A Basic Course in Public International Law Research; University Press of America, 2005.

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