Vanderbilt University Law School
Laurence R. Helfer
Professor of Law Director, International Legal Studies Program
Voice: (615) 322-6761
Fax: (615) 322-6631
Email: larry.helfer@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Room 279
View curriculum vitae (.pdf)
Personal Website
Links
Research Interest(s)
Interdisciplinary analysis of international law and institutions, international litigation and dispute settlement, human rights, international intellectual property law and policy, lesbian and gay rights
Education
J.D. New York University
M.P.A. Princeton University
B.A. Yale University
Biography
Laurence R. Helfer joined the Vanderbilt Law School faculty in 2004 and was named director of the law school's International Legal Studies Program in 2005. He has authored numerous publications and lectured widely on his diverse research interests. His articles have appeared in leading American law reviews, including the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the California Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and the Vanderbilt Law Review, as well as in numerous specialized and international law journals. After graduating from law school, Professor Helfer clerked for Chief Judge Dolores K. Sloviter, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and served as a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. He then practiced with the law firm of Rabinowitz Boudin in New York City, before moving to Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, where he taught for seven years and most recently held the position of Professor of Law and Lloyd Tevis Fellow. Professor Helfer is a member of the editorial board of the peer-reviewed Journal of World Intellectual Property and serves as an expert advisor to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. He recently received an International Research Incubator grant from the Center for the Americas at Vanderbilt to support an interdisciplinary research project on “The Politics of Intellectual Property Disputes in the Andean Community.” Professor Helfer also provides advice and assistance to non-governmental organizations that engage in human rights advocacy. He was a Visiting Professor of Law and the John Harvey Gregory Lecturer on World Organization at Harvard Law School during the Spring 2008 semester.
Representative Publications
Books
Human Rights, 2d edition. University Casebook Series. Foundation Press (forthcoming Fall 2008) (co-authored with Louis Henkin, Sarah Cleveland, Gerald Neuman & Diane Orentlicher)
Intellectual Property Rights in Plant Varieties: International Legal Regimes and Policy Options for National Governments. Monograph commissioned by U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (2004)
Articles
"Monitoring Compliance with Un-ratified Treaties: The ILO Experience," 71 Law & Contemporary Problems 195 (2008) (symposium on international delegation)
"Nonconsensual International Lawmaking," 2008 Illinois Law Review 71
"Redesigning the ECHR: Embeddedness as a Deep Structural Principle of the European Human Rights Regime," 19 European Journal of International Law 125 (2008) (peer review journal)
"The New Innovation Frontier? Intellectual Property and the European Court of Human Rights," 49 Harvard International Law Journal 1 (2008)
"Toward a Human Rights Framework for Intellectual Property," 40 U.C. Davis Law Review 971 (2007) (symposium issue)
"Understanding Change in International Organizations: Globalization and Innovation in the ILO," 59 Vanderbilt Law Review 649 (2006)
"Exiting Treaties," 91 Virginia Law Review 1579 (2005)
"Why States Create International Tribunals: A Response to Professors Posner and Yoo," 93 California Law Review 899 (2005) (with Anne-Marie Slaughter)
"Overlegalizing Human Rights: International Relations Theory and the Commonwealth Caribbean Backlash Against Human Rights Regimes," 102 Columbia Law Review 1832 (2002)
Working Papers
"From Luxembourg to Quito: Exporting the European Court of Justice to the Andean Community" (co-authored with Karen Alter)
"Islands of Effective International Adjudication: Constructing an Intellectual Property Rule of Law in the Andean Community" (co-authored with Karen Alter and Florencia Guerzovich)
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