Law and Sustainable Development: Comparative and International Perspectives
Organized by Tulane University Law School, Georgia State University College of Law, and Payson Center for International Development and hosted by FGV-Direito Rio
Bem vindo! Welcome! Focusing on Comparative Perspectives of Law and International Development, the Rio Program partners with the Fundação Getulio Vargas Faculty of Law ("FGV Direito-Rio"), one of the best law faculties in Brazil. We offer students the widest possible exposure to Brazil, Brazilian society and legal institutions, and to diverse learning environments, including classes supplemented by role-playing and presentations from local lawyers and government.
The program is designed to offer a maximum degree of flexibility for students to earn either three (3) or six (6) credits in the study of law and international development. The month-long program permits students to take one or two sessions, each of two-weeks duration. Each session is worth up to three (3) credit hours. Students may satisfy this maximum by choosing from a menu of one (1) credit courses. With its two-session format, the program offers students with work or other family commitments the option to come for two weeks and benefit from the richness of the foreign study experience. For students who can come for an entire month (and, ideally, students are encouraged to come for the whole time), the program offers the opportunity to select from a menu of complementary courses in areas of law and international development that are of special interest to them.
The program will include a mixture of learning experiences. Traditional lecture and class discussions will be supplemented by role-playing exercises and on-site demonstrations from local researchers and practitioners. All lectures will be IN ENGLISH or accompanied by English translation. Consistent with American Bar Association accreditation standards for foreign programs, where there is translation, extra class time will be added since translation time may not count as class time.
Speakers have included figures from some of Rio’s most prominent institutions, such as the Brazilian Institute of Statistics and Geography (http://www.ibge.gov.br/english/), the world-renowned Botanical Garden (a leading federal research institution -- http://www.jbrj.gov.br/) and the non-governmental organization Viva Rio (http://www.vivario.org.br/english/), which has established a network of internationally-recognized poverty reduction programs in over 30 of the city’s largest shantytown communities. In addition, each course is taught in collaboration with faculty drawn from Rio’s top universities.
To the extent that their own academic schedules permit, Brazilian graduate students and young lawyers in practice will participate in the classes and field visits. The program thus provides students with a variety of learning situations and opportunities. The program further features optional field visits to places of special interest. For example, environmental law students may go into the Atlantic rainforests (one of the world’s largest tropical forest systems). Human rights students might visit with community leaders demanding that the government give them housing and life-sustaining employment. Students of social equality and the law may visit with quilombolos – leaders of communities descended from escaped slaves, to discuss their efforts to secure racial equality.
In short, this program has been designed to offer students the widest possible exposure to Brazil and, above all, to the richness of its most famous city, Rio de Janeiro. The program is demanding intellectually and professionally. However, Brazilians are famous for their ability to weave work and pleasure together. Students can also be assured that they will have time to enjoy themselves apart from their studies and return home invigorated by their time in (as Cariocas say) “a cidade maravilhosa” – “the marvelous city.”
In addition, if there is sufficient student demand, an optional, post-course field trip will be arranged for four days and three nights to the Atlantic Rainforest several hours outside Rio. See below for more details.
Program Director
Professor Colin Crawford
Robert C. Cudd Professor of Law and Executive Director, Payson Center for International Development
If you have further questions about the Rio program, please e-mail Professor Crawford at colin.crawford@tulane.edu or contact Chana Lewis at 504.865.5990 or clewis1@tulane.edu. |