In an era of increasing globalization, study-abroad and clinical
components of our program have become increasingly important. BC Law has institutionalized
a number of major initiatives designed to create overseas opportunities for
our students:
• London Program. Supervised by a full-time member of
the Boston College Law School faculty, the London Program exposes students to
another legal culture, provides insight into comparative legal institutions,
and helps prepare students for international law practice. Students enroll in
courses taught in the LL.M. curriculum offered by King’s College of the
University of London. The centerpiece of the London experience is a legal internship
with a British organization, such as the Foundation for International Environmental
Law and Development, Amnesty International, or the Financial Services Authority.
• International Criminal Tribunals. Each semester and
each summer, several internships at the International Criminal Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague are available to BC Law students. BC Law
students have worked on the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic, former President
of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as well as investigations of pending
cases and drafting of indictments. Supervised by Phillip Weiner, BC Law ’80,
this program, which has recently been extended to include the newly-created
International Criminal Court (ICC), offers the unusual opportunity to “learn
by doing” in the area of international law and to identify long-term academic
and career options in the field.
• Boston College Immigration & Asylum Project (BCIAP).
BCIAP allows second- and third-year law students to immerse themselves in real-world
immigration legal work on behalf of indigent asylum seekers, immigrants, and
certain non-citizens detained by the INS. International clients include individuals
from Central America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. First-year law students may
spend spring break volunteering with front-line immigrant legal service organizations
such as the Haitian Catholic Center Legal Project, the Lutheran Ministries,
the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.
Students, supervised by BC Law School faculty member Daniel Kanstroom, advise
and counsel clients and conduct legal and factual research for public interest
attorneys.
• Law and Justice in the Americas. The Law and Justice
in the Americas program brings BC Law faculty and students together to pursue
law reform and justice projects in the Americas. Representative projects include
assisting the Caribbean region in preparing for WTO negotiations; developing
recommendations for area NGO’s pursuing reforms to Brazilian human rights
and Salvadoran habeas corpus law; and advising the Bolivian government on trade
negotiations and commercial law modernization.
• Foreign study at BC partner universities abroad. Boston
College has exchange and partnership arrangements with more than 60 foreign
universities, of which more than a third have law programs at which our students
can study during their second or third years. Study abroad requests are approved
by the Law School in response to a request by an individual student based on
that student’s identification of his or her own particularized course
of study. Through this conduit, students in recent years have pursued specialized
interests in European Union law, the law of Pacific Rim nations, international
human rights law from a regional perspective, and the law of particular foreign
countries. BC Law students have recently studied at Trinity College in Dublin,
Université de Paris -- X (Nanterre), the University of Amsterdam, Pontificia
Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), a private Catholic university
in Brazil, and the University of New South Wales and the University of Melbourne,
both in Australia.
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