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Berlin, Germany:

July 22^th - August 4^th, 2012

Session: July 22^th - August 4^th, 2012

The Berlin program is unique among the many law school summer programs. It is a joint venture between Tulane Law School and the Institut für Anwaltsrecht of the Humboldt University Law Faculty in Berlin. 60 American and Canadian students are admitted through Tulane and 60 international students are admitted through Humboldt. The 2011 Program had participants from 31 countries coming from ever continent.This allows U.S. and Canadian students to experience mediation in an international with students from all over the world. 

The program is conducted entirely in English. Fluency in English is a prerequisite for students who are admitted through Humboldt. These 60 international students are selected competitively; so they are highly qualified and have distinguished academic records at their law schools.

Berlin, the new capital of unified Germany, is uniquely cosmopolitan with cultural attractions that few other cities can match. Berlin was recently described as one of the great undiscovered cities in Europe. It was listed as No. 4 on the New York Times recommendations of the top 50 places to visit last year. Berlin is a wonderful city with world-class museums, historical sites, outstanding contemporary architecture, good restaurants and reasonable prices. Past participants have greatly enjoyed Berlin's vibrant nightlife and avant-garde art scene.

The two-week program focuses on the cutting edge of alternative dispute resolution in a cross-cultural setting. The 3 credit hours involve a combination of workshops, role-play exercises, lectures and other presentations. Each workshop group is diversified to contain as many nationalities as possible, creating an international experience like no other program of its kind.

The lectures and small group sessions will provide the standard training in both the theory and basic skills of negotiation and mediation. One major objective is to develop negotiation and mediation skills in cross-cultural transactions involving participants of different nationalities and diverging expectations. Even experienced mediators in the U.S., where the use of mediation has advanced rapidly in recent years, encounter unexpected pitfalls when applying their skills in mediations between parties from different countries and cultures.

The Berlin program offers a wide variety of social and cultural activities. The program begins with a complimentary Berlin Tour and a reception and continues with many cultural visits including the Chancellery, the Reichstag and the Holocaust Memorial and Museum.  There are also receptions hosted by local law firms and almost nightly walk-arounds led by young German faculty members.  For the sports fans, soccer and volleyball games will be organized, and group bike rides are always a great time. The annual River Cruise on the River Spree and canals encircling Berlin's center  will be the program’s closing event before exams. Berlin also offers picturesque walk-arounds through Berlin's neighborhoods, a variety of restaurants, gardens, museums and historic sites to visit.

Calendar:

PROGRAM CO-DIRECTOR:

Professor William R. Pitts  

PROGRAM CO-DIRECTOR:

Professor Jörg Fedtke  

HUMBOLDT DIRECTOR:

Karl-Michael Schmidt

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT BERLIN PROGRAM, you may contact Professor Pitts at wrpitts@msn.com; Karl-Michael Schmidt at anwaltsinstitut@rewi.hu-berlin.de; Extensive additional information is available on the Program's primary web site maintained by Humboldt University: http://ifa.rewi.hu-berlin.de/. You may also contact Chana Lewis for further information about the program at chana.lewis@tulane.edu.

Presentation by Professor Pitts

HISTORY OF HUMBOLDT UNIVERSITY (formerly The University of Berlin)
Humboldt University is located in the heart of historic Berlin and within short walking distance to Museum Island (Berlin's primary museum complex, including the Pergamon Museum and the Egyptian collection), Gendarmenmarkt, the Brandenburg Gate, the Tiergarten, the Reichstag, the Chancellery, Potsdamer Platz with the Sony Center, Checkpoint Charlie and the wonderful shopping on Friedrichstrasse.

The University's first building was the former palace of a Prussian King. That original historic building is now occupied by the Humboldt Law Faculty, where the summer program classrooms and administrative offices are located. The Law Faculty building adjoins Bebelplatz, the historic open square that was the site of the infamous book-burning in 1933.

Humboldt University was founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin. The University's founder, Wilhelm von Humboldt, created an educational model which made the University of Berlin the "mother of all modern universities."  This model spread throughout the world over the following 150 years. 

The second Humboldt brother, Alexander von Humboldt, was the most renowned natural scientist of his era. One science historian said that in 1800 he was the most recognized person in the world with the exception of Napoleon. Alexander von Humboldt's influence led to the creation of the modern model of scientific education in the fields of physics, chemistry, mathematics.

After is founding the University of Berlin rapidly gained recognition as one of Europe's outstanding universities and has been home to many of the world's greatest thinkers of the past two centuries and 29 Nobel Prize winners. At one point in the last century more than half of all Nobel prizes had been awarded to Humboldt alumni and professors, including Max Born, Paul Ehrlich, Albert Einstein, Hermann Fischer, James Franck, Fritz Haber, Werner Heisenberg, Robert Koch, Max Planck and Erwin Schrodinger.

Other notable Humboldt alumni and professors include legal theorist Savigny, composer Felix Mendelssohn; philosophers Friedrich Engels, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, G.W.F. Hegel, Herbert Marcuse, Karl Marx, Arthur Schopenhauer; theologians Alexander Altmann, Bruno Bauer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Friedrich Schelling, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Menachem Mendel Schneerson; writers W.E.B. DuBois, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Heinrich Heine and Heinrich Mann; and politicians and activists Michelle Bachele (President of Chile), Azmi Bishara (Arab-Israeli politician), Otto von Bismarck (first German chancellor), Robert Havemann (co-founder of the European Union and leading GDR dissident), Max Huber (international lawyer and diplomat), and European unifier Robert Schuman. The current Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, is a former chemistry professor at Humboldt before entering politics, and Bernard Schlink, the author of The Reader, was a law professor at the University.