Pitt’s Center for International Legal Education Celebrates 20th Anniversary with Two-Day Program of Events and Speakers

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh School of Law’s Center for International Legal Education will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a program of events and speakers Sept. 10-11. Featured speakers for the celebration include School of Law faculty, prominent alumni, government officials, and international legal scholars.

Established in the fall of 1995, Pitt’s Center for International Legal Education offers Pitt Law students advanced experiences in comparative and international law, both in Pittsburgh and abroad. The center also attracts international law students to Pitt to develop relationships as well as for training in comparative legal systems and to create greater diversity in the understanding of the rule of law.

The anniversary celebration will begin with a by-invitation-only reception and dinner, commencing at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 10 in Ballroom A of Pitt’s University Club, 123 University Pl., Oakland. Media are welcome to cover the event; journalists interested in attending should RSVP to Anthony M. Moore at amm114@pitt.edu.

Scheduled events on Sept. 11 will take place in Pitt’s Teplitz Memorial Moot Courtroom within the Barco Law Building, 3900 Forbes Ave., Oakland. All events are free and open to the public. Events will include panel discussions on career development and planning, cyber security and Internet privacy, and various topics related to international human-rights law, among others. A full listing of the day’s events and speakers can be found here: http://law.pitt.edu/cile20/schedule.

Headlining the day’s events will be a 1 p.m. keynote address by Jeffrey Kovar, assistant legal adviser for western hemisphere affairs for the U.S. Department of State. Earlier this year, Kovar played a key role in addressing the legal ramifications of the recent normalization of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States.

Serving within the U.S. Department of State since 1986, Kovar has been a key figure in negotiations of global significance in the field of public international law for nearly three decades. In addition to his role in normalizing U.S.-Cuban relations, he has been involved with international arbitrations at the United Nations, the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Netherlands, and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington, D.C. In 2005, he led a U.S. delegation to the successful conclusion of the Hague Choice of Court Convention. Kovar also led negotiations for the United States on the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in 1992.

For more information on the Center for International Legal Education or the center’s 20th anniversary program, contact Richard Thorpe, program executive director, at richard.thorpe@pitt.edu or 412-383-6754.

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