Director, Donia Human Rights Center; Bruno Simma Collegiate Professor of Law
About
Steven R. Ratner, the Bruno Simma Collegiate Professor of Law, came to the University of Michigan Law School in 2004 from the University of Texas School of Law. His teaching and research focuses on public international law and on a range of challenges facing governments and international institutions since the Cold War, including ethnic conflict, border disputes, counter-terrorism strategies, corporate and state duties regarding foreign investment, and accountability for human rights violations. Professor Ratner has written and lectured extensively on the law of war, and is also interested in the intersection of international law and moral philosophy and other theoretical issues. In 1998-99, he was appointed by the UN Secretary-General to a three-person group of experts to consider options for bringing the Khmer Rouge to justice, and he has since advised governments, NGOs, and international organizations on a range of international law issues. In 2008-09, he served in the legal division of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. A member of the board of editors of the American Journal of International Lawfrom 1998-2008, he began his legal career as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. State Department. Professor Ratner holds a J.D. from Yale, an M.A. (diplôme) from the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales (Geneva), and an A.B. from Princeton. He established and directs the Law School's externship program in Geneva. In 2010-11, he was a member of the UN's three-person Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, which advised Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on human rights violations related to the end of the Sri Lankan civil war. Since 2009, he has served on the State Department's Advisory Committee on International Law.
Affiliation(s)
- Law
- Center for Southeast Asian Studies
- Human Rights Program
Award(s)
- Member, Board of Editors, American Journal of International Law, Fulbright Senior Fellow, OSCE Regional Research Program.
