Professor Paolo Galizzi, Faculty Director

SHRI Faculty Director Professor Paolo Galizzi is Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Sustainable Development Legal Initiative (SDLI) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School. He joined Fordham from Imperial College, University of London, and previously held academic positions at Universities of Nottingham, Verona, and Milan. At the Leitner Center, Professor Galizzi directs the international development clinic, as well as a new clinic on corporate social responsibility that he began in 2012. Professor Galizzi’s research interests lie in international environmental law, human rights and the law of sustainable development, and he has published extensively in these areas.  He has also directed numerous legal research and capacity building projects in partnership with diverse public and private stakeholders in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Professor Gay McDougall

Professor Gay McDougall is Distinguished Scholar-In-Residence at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School.  Prior to coming to Fordham, she served as the first United Nations Independent Expert on Minority Issues, as a member of the UN treaty body that oversees compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and as Executive Director of the international human rights NGO, Global Rights.  She was one of five international members of the South African Independent Electoral Commission that administered the first democratic, non-racial elections in that country.  For 14 years prior to that appointment, she had served as Director of the Southern Africa Project of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where she worked to secure the release of thousands of political prisoners.

Professor Catherine Powell

Professor Catherine Powell is Associate Professor of Law and Director of the International Law and Constitution Initiative at Fordham Law School, where she teaches international law, human rights, and constitutional law. She is also a fellow in the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Professor Powell took a leave from academia from 2009–2012 to serve on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff and on the National Security Staff as director for human rights in the Obama administration. She was founding director of both the Human Rights Institute and Human Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, where she was a clinical professor from 1998–2002.  In addition to previously serving on the board of Human Rights Watch, she has been a consultant on national security and human rights matters for the Center for American Progress and the American Constitution Society.

Professor Elisabeth Wickeri

Professor Elisabeth Wickeri is Executive Director of the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice and Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham Law School.  Professor Wickeri also directs the Center’s Asia Law and Justice Program and is Chair of the New York City Bar Association’s International Human Rights Committee.  She concentrates her research on human rights defenders, socio-economic rights, and the rights of vulnerable groups and people. At Fordham, Professor Wickeri teaches in the public international law curriculum, as well as the Leitner Center’s International Human Rights and Law and Development in Africa clinics, and has led human rights fieldwork in Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Ghana, Myanmar, Nepal, Hong Kong, Rwanda, and Tanzania. She also serves as a law lecturer and course director with the Center for International Humanitarian Cooperation.

Professor Joey Lee

Professor Joey Lee is the Asia Law and Justice Fellow at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice and Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham Law School. At the Center, Professor Lee leads research and advocacy efforts to support strengthening of rule of law and human rights protections in Asia, with a focus on China and Myanmar. He also co-teaches in the Corporate Social Responsibility clinic, directing projects on corporate accountability for human rights impacts, particularly in the information and communications technology sector. Previously, he worked on these and other issues at Human Rights in China as a Bernstein Fellow in International Human Rights and later as Hong Kong Senior Program Manager. Prior to joining HRC, Professor Lee practiced business litigation at the Boston office of Edwards Wildman LLP, with a focus on directors’ and officers’ liability.

Professor Emily Smith Ewing

Professor Emily Smith Ewing is PVH Corp. Fellow in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice and Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham Law School, where she co-teaches in the Center’s CSR and International Law and Development in Africa clinics. Prior to joining the Leitner Center, Emily worked as a corporate lawyer at Norton Rose Fulbright, and directed a small NGO, Hands On Hong Kong, that advised companies on CSR programs, among other initiatives. With past work experience in London, Hong Kong, Southern China and New York, Emily now works on CSR issues across a range of industries and regions, including research on CSR in Africa, examining the rights of workers in the apparel sector across the globe, and investigating the social responsibility of lawyers to provide pro bono services in Colombia and Ghana, with upcoming projects in Argentina and Chile.

Professor Tracy Higgins

Professor Jeanmarie Fenrich

Professor Zach Hudson

Professor Robin Lenhardt