Prof. Burns H. Weston :: Current Projects

Professor Weston maintains a rigorous schedule. The following represent his current list of major professional activities.

The CLI is an externally funded joint project of the Vermont Law School Environmental Law Center (VLS-ELC) and The University of Iowa Center for Human Rights (UICHR). Its overall purpose is to research and promote legal doctrines, principles, and rules appropriate for recognition by courts, legislatures, administrative agencies, and private sector institutions to safeguard present and future generations from harms resulting from global climate change (especially global warming). It takes as given that climate change exists and affirms that lawyers have a vital role to play in both public and private discourse and action relative to it. Professor Weston is the CLI's Director.

The University of Iowa Center for Human Rights (UICHR), founded in 1999, is a direct outgrowth of a year-long University commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It reflects the University's commitment to a permanent presence for human rights issues and action on the University's Iowa City campus, its surrounding community, and beyond.

Initiated by a multidisciplinary group of faculty, the Center emphasizes a diverse array of cross-disciplinary activities, designed to consider, constructively and critically, the problems and prospects of human rights at home and abroad, now and in the future. These activities include:

Scholarly commentary: research and writing (books, articles, opinion editorials, etc.), faculty seminars, student-faculty colloquia, scholarly conferences etc.;

Educational innovation: university curricular development, new K-12 instructional materials, K-12 teacher training (locally and abroad), externships/internships (with select human rights NGOs, international institutions, and governmental offices) etc.;

Artistic advocacy and expression: fiction and poetry readings visual displays, films, theatrical performances, musical offerings, etc.;

Community outreach (local, state, regional): distinguished speaker and activist-in-residence programs, conferences and symposia, radio/TV broadcasts, artistic events (visual displays, films, theatrical performances, musical offerings, etc.);

Direct action: safe haven sanctuary (for scholars and activists at risk from war and other human rights abuse, seeking opportunity for reflection and renewal), fact-finding/monitoring and reporting, legal and political advocacy, legal and medical assistance (in cooperation with university/civic groups and NGOs).

The UICHR also awards annual prizes for human rights scholarship and activism to deserving students, faculty, and off-campus persons and groups.

While other universities have established human rights centers and programs, the Center for Human Rights at The University of Iowa is innovative in several ways. First, though naturally influenced by the disciplines of law and politics, it does not limit itself to a traditional legal/political approach and counts among its Executive Council and Society of Center Fellows many faculty from throughout the University. As a result of this transdisciplinary design, it integrates anthropological, educational, environmental, geographic, historical, medical, journalistic, literary, philosophical, psychological, sociological, and even artistic as well as legal and political perspectives into its diverse agenda. Second, the Center makes a self-conscious effort to involve students in its activities and to reach out to local citizens and citizen groups not officially associated with The University of Iowa to facilitate its ultimate mission, the promotion and protection of human rights at home and abroad. Finally, believing that the broad dissemination of information about human rights is central to the advancement of such rights, the Center seeks regularly to inform both human rights specialists and the general public about its activities and about human rights issues and developments generally.

Professor Weston is the Director of the UI Center for Human Rights and, in this capacity, administers its various activities in consultation with the Center's Executive Council and with the assistance of an Executive Director and Associate Director. The Center is headquartered at 256 International Center, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242 USA. Telephone: + 1-319-335-3900; Fax: + 1-319-335-0280; E-mail: uichr@uiowa.edu. For further details, see UI Center for Human Rights.

The University of Iowa College of Law International & Comparative Law Program (ICLP)

In keeping with its educational mission of encouraging the acquisition of both broad social awareness and technical professional competence, The University of Iowa College of Law offers a strong program of study in the rapidly expanding fields of international and comparative law. It does so for essentially three reasons: (1) virtually any lawyer in this era of accelerating global interdependence is likely to be confronted by problems that require knowledge and understanding of international law and foreign legal systems; (2) as professionals and community leaders, lawyers often are called upon to influence, both directly and indirectly, the theory and conduct of United States foreign policy; and (3) the study of international and comparative law affords unique insight into the nature of law and legal process and therefore helps to establish necessary theoretical foundations upon which superior lawyering of all kinds depends.

In pro bono advisory capacity, drawing upon his past experience as Associate Dean for International and Comparative Legal Studies responsible for the College of Law's International and Comparative Law Program (ICLP), Professor Weston, together with his colleagues, continues to help the Program earn its nationally and internationally recognized reputation for the quality of its instructional programs, which concentrates its international and comparative law studies in both Juris Doctor (J.D.) and Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree curricula. The ICLP's curriculum is buttressed by a substantial international, comparative, and foreign law library collection (90,000 + volumes). It is enhanced, too, by an innovative student-faculty journal entitled Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems (TLCP) and an active speakers program under the auspices of the student-run Iowa Society of International Law and Affairs (ISILA). Formerly faculty advisor to both TLCP and the ISILA, Professor Weston continues to assist these activities on an informal basis.

The Procedural Aspects of International Law (PAIL) Monograph Series is an ongoing activity of the Procedural Aspects of International Law Institute, a nonprofit organization that is devoted to furthering the observance of international law through research, consulting, and publishing monographs and other educational materials. Established in 1965 by academic lawyers, government officials, and private practitioners, the PAIL Institute has consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations. Its activities include work in areas as diverse as international claims settlements, a draft convention on terrorism, the concept of autonomy in international law, the classification of treaties and other transboundary agreements, the reform of international organization, and the international protection of human rights. The twenty-three volumes that presently comprise the PAIL Monograph Series, currently published by Transnational Publishers, Inc. of Ardsley, New York, represent the only continuously edited series of books on international law in the United States. Professor Weston is the Editor of the Monograph Series and welcomes the submission of book proposals and manuscripts for possible publication. Proposals and manuscripts should be sent as follows: Professor Emeritus Burns H. Weston, PAIL Monograph Series Editor, College of Law, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242 USA.



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