The Freeman Spogli Institute for
International Studies (FSI) has announced that Helen Stacy, a scholar of
international law and human rights, will become a full-time Senior Fellow at
FSI. One of the founding
participants in FSI's Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law,
Stacy last year became coordinator of the University's Program on Human Rights. "Helen has brought extraordinarily
energetic leadership to interdisciplinary work on human rights at Stanford,"
said Coit D. Blacker, Director of FSI, "and we are delighted that FSI will be
her home base for this important work going forward."
Among the highlights of the Program
on Human Rights under Stacy's leadership have been lectures, colloquia, and
seminars featuring such eminent speakers as Albie Sachs, former justice of the
South African Constitutional Court, and Mary Robinson, former U.N. Commissioner
for Human Rights. She also
launched a workshop on Legalizing Human Rights in Africa that has drawn faculty
and graduate students from many disciplines across campus.
Author of Human Rights for the
21st Century: Sovereignty, Civil Society, Culture (Stanford University Press, 2009), Stacy has written
widely on international legal norms and their capacity for enforcement by
international and regional courts.
"Helen's work helps to show how the law can improve human rights standards while also honoring local social, cultural, and religious values," sHelen's work helps to show how the law can improve human rights
standards while also honoring local social, cultural, and religious values" - Larry Diamond aid Larry Diamond, Director of CDDRL.
"As an experienced lawyer and legal scholar, Helen adds an invaluable
dimension to our empirical and normative work at CDDRL."
Stacy, an Australian lawyer and
scholar of international and comparative law, legal philosophy, and human
rights who began teaching at Stanford Law School in 2002 and joined the
Stanford faculty in 2008, has served Stanford in a wide variety of roles. At
the Law School, she has produced works analyzing the efficacy of regional
courts in promoting human rights, differences in the legal systems of
neighboring countries, and the impact of postmodernism on legal thinking. In
addition to teaching international law and human rights, she has trained
international lawyers in the JSD and LLM programs.
"Helen's expertise on international
law, especially with regard to human rights, and her dedication to advising our
SPILS fellows and JSD candidates have brought enormous benefits to our graduate
program," said Deborah Hensler, Judge John W. Ford Professor of Dispute
Resolution and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies.
As part of her interdisciplinary
approach to teaching, research and service, Stacy has also co-taught
undergraduate courses in Introduction to Humanities, supervised graduate
students in the Program on Modern Thought
and Literature, helped start a summer human rights internship program
for undergraduates, and served as a
researcher in the Forum on Contemporary Europe, an affiliated faculty member in
the Center for African Studies, and a faculty fellow at the Clayman
Institute for Gender Research.
"Helen has been an important
contributor at the Law School, but we are excited about the possibilities of
enlarging and enhancing the Program on Human Rights," said Law School Dean
Larry Kramer. "This is a key
opportunity for law students and faculty interested in international human
rights law, especially as its location in FSI brings lawyers together with
students and faculty from other disciplines. Helen's move to FSI is the best of all possible worlds for
both the Law School and the University."
Stacy's ongoing research will focus on how
regional human rights courts can help bridge the gap between universalist
international human rights norms and local custom in ways that have eluded
international institutions.
This work will take her to the Africa Court of Human and Peoples'
Rights, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights and the European Union's
Fundamental Rights Agency.
FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.
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