Pinto and Wang become the First Elected President & President-Elect During the Inaugural General Assembly of the IALS
WASHINGTON, May 31 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Over 100 legal educators from more than 40 countries attended the first General Assembly of the International Association of Law Schools (IALS) to vote for the Association’s first elected President, President-Elect, and Governing Board. Mónica Pinto of the University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina, was elected President and Francis SL Wang of the Kenneth Wang School of Law, Suzhou, China was elected President-Elect. Other newly elected Governing Board members include Mariam Hassan al-Khalifa (College of Law, University of Bahrain, Bahrain); Reem Bahdi (University of Windsor, Canada); Markus Baumans (Bucerius Law School, Germany); Fatou Kiné Camara (University of Dakar, Senegal); Dakas C J Dakas (University of Jos, Nigeria); Claudio Grossman (American University College of Law, USA); Fernando Villarreal-Gonda (Facultad Libre de Derecho de Monterrey, Mexico).
“It is a great honor to be elected President of this growing and dynamic organization,” said Pinto. “As law schools educate the next generation of lawyers about their countries law, we must also educate our students about different legal systems in this increasingly interconnected world.”
Pinto is a Professor of International Law and International Human Rights Law and the Director of the Human Rights Program, at the University of Buenos Aires Law School. She has held two mandates on behalf of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and is the author of several books and articles on the topic of Human Rights Law.
“I look forward to working with President Pinto and the Governing Board to continue to advance the IALS mission,” stated Wang. “As we see more law school graduates needing information about other legal systems, the importance of IALS’s mission-fostering a mutual understanding of and respect for the world’s varied and changing legal systems and cultures as a contribution to justice and a peaceful world-becomes clear.”
Wang is a Professor of Law at the Kenneth Wang School of Law, Visiting Professor at U.C. Berkely as well as a Visiting Professor of Law and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the University of Pacific-McGeorge School of Law. He has testified before the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Trade Commission, the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office and has published and lectured widely in the United States and Asia on selected aspects of international law and related issues.
LexisNexis has provided a grant to support global participation in the General Assembly.
The International Association of Law Schools (IALS) is a non-profit organization founded in 2005 with a membership of 176 educational institutions, associations, and legal educators from 49 countries. Its members are committed to the proposition that the quality of legal education in any society is improved when students learn about other cultures and legal systems and the diverse approaches to solving legal problems employed in those legal systems.
