April 05, 2010
Professor Colin Crawford of Georgia State University College of Law has been named Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Payson Center for International Development, effective July 1, 2010. This appointment will further integrate the Payson Center into the Law School and will both enlarge and enrich the academic and co-curricular opportunities available to Tulane law students. Professor Crawford's expertise in environmental law further strengthens Tulane's existing strength in that area.
Interim Dean Stephen Griffin stated, "The hiring of Professor Crawford opens exciting new doors of opportunity for students and the Law School. This means we can bring the programs of the Payson Center and its emphasis on international development inside the Law School in a way that will prove fruitful both for current Payson Center students and faculty and for law students."
Professor Crawford's work addresses comparative, cross-cultural environmental justice issues, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. At Georgia State, Professor Crawford has co-directed the Center for the Comparative Study of Metropolitan Growth and is the founder and director of the Summer Legal Study Program in Rio de Janeiro. He also created a project known as Study Space which brings together academics and graduate students twice each year for an intensive study of one city in the Americas or the Caribbean. Crawford has described himself as a "deep believer in the importance of international education, especially in the globalized market."
A graduate of Harvard Law School, Professor Crawford also holds degrees in modern history from Columbia University and Cambridge University. After receiving his law degree, he worked in Tokyo and New York, concentrating in environmental and land use law. He is the author of an award-winning book of narrative non-fiction, Uproar at Dancing Rabbit Creek: Battling Over Race, Class and the Environment and has also written on environmental topics for The Wall Street Journal and Salon.com, among others.