W. Michael Reisman has been appointed the Myres McDougal Professor of Law by vote of the Yale Corporation.
Reisman is the first incumbent to the McDougal chair, which was established in 1997 to honor Myres Smith McDougal, the renowned legal scholar and educator who was Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law. Reisman was both a student and longtime colleague of McDougal, who died earlier this month after a long illness. (See obituary on this page.)
An expert in international law and arbitration, jurisprudence, and human rights issues, Reisman teaches courses at the Law School in international law, international commercial arbitration and jurisprudence.
In addition to his many contributions to scholarly journals, he is the author or editor of numerous books, including three coedited with Myres McDougal: "International Law in Contemporary Perspective: The Public Order of the World Community," "International Law Essays" and "Power and Policy in Quest of Law: Essays in Honor of Eugene Victor Rostow" (also coedited with Martinus Nijhoff). Reisman's other books include: "The Art of the Possible: Diplomatic Alternatives in the Middle East," "Folded Lies: Bribery, Crusades, and Reforms; Jurisprudence" (with Aaron M. Schreiber), "Systems of Control in International Adjudication and Arbitration" and "Regulating Covert Action: Practices, Contexts and Policies of Covert Coercion Abroad in International and American Law" (with James E. Baker).
Reisman received his B.A. from the Johns Hopkins University in 1960, and an LL.B. from Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1963. Also that year, he received a Diplôme en Droit Comparé from the Faculté Internationale pour l'enseignement de droit comparé (Strasbourg). He received both LL.M. (1964) and J.S.D. (1965) degrees from the Yale Law School. After earning his doctorate, he worked with Myres McDougal and Harold Lasswell at Yale, and then spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in The Hague.
In 1968 he joined the Law School faculty; in 1972, he was named professor of law; and in 1982, he was appointed the Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld Professor of Jurisprudence.
Reisman is a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science. He is a member of the Advisory Committee on International Law of the U.S. Department of State, co-editor-in-chief of the American Journal of International Law, vice-chair of the Policy Sciences Center, Inc., and a member of the board of The Foreign Policy Association.
He has served as arbitrator and counsel in many international cases and has served as both vice president and president of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights of the Organization of American States. He has been vice president and, more recently, honorary vice-president of the American Society of International Law.
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