Center on Global Governance

The center engages in ongoing review of the Columbia Law School's extensive curriculum and identifies collaborators for teaching and research from communities outside the law school, including the worlds of practice and public policy.

Directors, Faculty, and Staff

What We Do

We at the Columbia Law School's Center on Global Governance are proud to introduce our new co-director Lori Damrosch, who in October 2019 joined Michael Doyle. Previously, since its inauguration, Richard Gardner also served with fellow former diplomat, Columbia University Professor Michael Doyle, as co-director of the Law School’s Center on Global Governance until his retirement. Since its founding in 2003, the center has run a public speaker series featuring distinguished members of the international policy community as well as the academy. Gardner and Doyle (who served as assistant secretary-general and special adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan from 2001 to 2003) also hosted dozens of conferences addressing issues including transitional justice in the wake of mass atrocity, international crime and terrorism, the regulation of the multinational enterprise and transnational capital, immigration, and human rights.

Overall the center’s initiatives flow naturally from Columbia Law School’s exceptionally rich curriculum relating to global law issues. Its activities, in turn, affect that curriculum. As part of its regular curriculum, the Columbia Law School offers what is perhaps the largest number of courses and seminars of any U.S. law school, focusing on the challenges emerging from transnational movement of goods, capital, people, or ideas.

Seminars and Courses

The backbone of our international and comparative law curriculum consists of seminars and courses dealing with global constitutionalism, the degradation of the global commons, transitional justice in the wake of mass atrocity, international crime and terrorism, the regulation of the multinational enterprise and transnational capital, immigration, and human rights.

Distinguished Guest Speakers

It invites distinguished individuals from academe as well as those engaged in international public policy, whether in private practice or other settings, to the Columbia Law School for speaking events, roundtables and other fora, sometimes in venues that are open to the wider Columbia University community and the general public.

Access to International Talents

The Law School's associations with preeminent law faculties or institutes in Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, Leiden, London, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, and Paris provide the center with ready access to relevant legal expertise and diverse points of view from throughout the world.

Prominently Featured in Journals

Global legal issues also feature prominently in many of Columbia's 14 student-edited journals (including six journals that focus on international, foreign, or arbitral law), as well as in the efforts of other Columbia Law School programs, including centers on Chinese, European, Japanese, and Korean law, and some of the center's programs are undertaken in collaboration with student-edited journals or these other programs.

Our Support

The center addresses globalization's legal dimensions through diverse interdisciplinary research and scholarship.

Research Projects

Long-term research projects, such as collaborative research with professional disciplines other than law, including economics and philosophy, and other professional schools including the schools of business, journalism, public health, and international and public affairs.

Conferences and Events

The Center on Global Governance holds periodic conferences and other speaking events at Columbia Law School. Usually, the events take place during the spring and fall semesters with distinguished speakers.

University Associations

Associations and public policy-oriented projects with other Columbia University centers and programs, including the Earth Institute, the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, and the Institute for Human Rights.

Joint Programs

Joint programs with international organizations such as the United Nations.