International Association of Law Schools

Governing Board

Board Members please click here to be directed to the IALS Groupsite

President – message 

Francis SL Wang
Kenneth Wang School of Law Soochow University
China

Francis SL Wang is the Executive Director of The Wang Family Foundation.  He is one of the founding Governors and presently serves as the President of the International Association of Law Schools.  He is one of founders and a member of the Advisory Council to the Human Rights Resource Center, a university based research institute headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia with supporting centers at universities throughout the ASEAN countries. Professor Wang is the Dean Emeritus and Professor of Law at the Kenneth Wang School of Law, Soochow University, Suzhou, China. He serves as the Honorary Chair of the Board of Regents of Soochow University.  He is a Visiting Professor of Law and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the University of Pacific – McGeorge School of Law.  He is the co-founder and the Senior Counsel of the War Crimes Studies Center at U.C. Berkeley. He is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.

Vice President

Michael Coper
Australian National University Faculty of Law
Australia

Vice President

Aalt Willem Heringa
Maastricht University Faculty of Law
The Netherlands

Aalt Willem Heringa (1955) graduated from the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden in 1978, where he worked until 1987 as an assistant professor. He was a visiting researcher at the Centre of European Governmental Studies of the University of Edinburgh (1986) and at the European Research Center of the Harvard Law School (1996). In 1989 he completed his Ph.D. thesis ‘Sociale Grondrechten’ (Social Rights). He has been working at Maastricht University, the Faculty of Law, since 1987; he was appointed full professor of (comparative) constitutional and administrative law in 1995. Since then he successfully supervised twelve PhD’s.

Immediate Past President

Mónica Pinto
University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Law 
Argentina

General Secretary/Treasurer

Barbara Holden-Smith
Cornell University
USA

Jassim Al’Shamsi
United Arab Emirates University Faculty of Law
UAE

Jassim Ali Salem Al Shamsi, Professor of Civil Law, Dean of Faculty of Law, Member of the IALS Board, Lawyer and Arbitrator. Prof. Al Shamsi joined the Faculty of Shaira and Law as Assistant professor on 1990, Associate on 1996, then Professor on 2001. He was appointed as Assistant Dean for Research Affairs on 1992 to 1996, then the Chair of Department of Transactions on 1996, Vice Dean on 200, and Dean from 2005 till present. Prof. Al Shamsi also was appointed as the Editor in Chief for the Journal of Sharia and Law on 2004/2005. He wrote several law books. He is a member of several legal committees in the Faculty of Law, UAE University and the UAE legal community. He participated in many international conferences and seminars on civil law and arbitration inside and outside the UAE, has had also participated as member and as chair in LLM supervision committees. Prof. Al Shamsi is a certified arbitrator; he is a member in all UAE arbitration centers besides the GCC arbitration center in Bahrain.  He conducted many arbitration cases in several fields.

Mary Anne Bobinski
University of British Columbia Faculty of Law
Canada

Mary Anne Bobinski has served as Dean and Professor of the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Law since 2003. She previously served as the John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Law and Director of the Health Law and Policy Institute at the University of Houston Law Center in the United States. Professor Bobinski’s research and teaching interests include torts, health law, health care finance and bioethics, legal aspects of HIV infection, and reproductive health law issues. She is a co-author of two leading law school casebooks in the United States, Health Care Law & Ethics and AIDS Policy and Law; the co-author/co-editor of a two volume set on medical ethics; and has authored a number of law review articles and book chapters on health law topics. She is a frequent presenter to academic and other groups in the U.S. and Canada on topics ranging from health care finance to public health care law and ethics.  Bobinski has participated extensively in academic and professional service activities in the U.S. and Canada. She is a former President of the Canadian Council of Law Deans and member of the Canadian Public Health Officer’s Ethics Advisory Committee and current President of the Board of the American Society for Law, Medicine and Ethics.

Nerina Boschiero
University of Milan Faculty of Law
Italy

Fatou Kiné Camara
University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar Faculty of Legal and Political Science
Senegal

Fatou Kine Camara is of Senegalese nationality, born in Dakar (SENEGAL). Dr. Camara holds two pre-doctoral degree, one in international law, one in private law; an M.A. and B.A., all from Paris II-Assas University, France; and a Ph.D. in law (thesis subject: “Le principe de l’autonomie de la clause compromissoire en droit commercial international”) from the Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar. She is an Associate Professor of Law at the University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar where she teaches Introduction to Civil Law; Family Law, Judicial Institutions, Human Rights, Women’s Rights, the African system of Human Rights Protection. Dr Camara is a feminist activist. She has been awarded (November 2010), the “Prix des Droits de l’Homme du Cinquantenaire des Indépendances” (Human Rights Prize for the Jubilee of the 50 years of independence) by the Académie des Sciences d’Outre-mer and the Secrétariat du cinquantenaire des Indépendances (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France)

Lidia Casas
Diego Portales University Faculty of Law
Chile

V.S. Elizabeth
National Law School of India University
India

Professor of History & Women and Law, National Law School of India University.  She is one of the founding members of the International Association of Law Schools and is currently serving a second term on the Governing Board of the IALS.  She has been teaching at the National Law School since September 1991.  She was the Coordinator of the Centre for Women and Law, National Law School of India University from Oct 1994 to Sep 2011.  She has been nominated as a member to The High Level Committee on Status of Women, Government of India in July 2012. Her research interests include socio-economic history of India and Violence Against Women, particularly sexual harassment of women and domestic violence.  She has served as a resource person on women and law related issues at the National Judicial Academy and other such Government research and training institutions.

Claudio Grossman
American University Washington College of Law
United States

Claudio Grossman is professor of law and dean of American University Washington College of Law and the Raymond Geraldson Scholar for International and Humanitarian Law. He is the chair of the United Nations Committee against Torture, where he has served as a committee member since 2003. Previously, Grossman served as a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (1993-2001), its president (1996-97, and 2001), its special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous populations (2000-2001), and its first special rapporteur on women’s rights (1996-2000). Grossman has authored books and articles on international law, human rights, and the law of international organizations, and has received numerous awards for his contributions to these fields including the 2010 Henry W. Edgerton Civil Liberties Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area in recognition of exceptional lifetime achievements related to the advancement and defense of human rights and civil liberties, and the Lifetime Leadership Award from the Hispanic National Bar Foundation in 2012.

Jukka Tapani Kekkonen
University of Helsinki Faculty of Law
Finland

Professor of legal History and Roman law at the law faculty of the University of Helsinki. Former dean (2004-2009) of the faculty and since 2010 a board member of the University. He has written (or co-written) 13 books and published more than 250 articles. He is known in Finland as one of the foremost public intellectuals taking part in discussions about fundamental challenges of present day societies.

Tahir Mamman
Nigerian Law School
Nigeria

Valentina Smorgunova
Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia
Russia

Dean, Faculty of Law, and Head of the Department of Civil Legal Education at the Herzen University, St. Petersburg, Russia.  Her first Ph.D. degree (1981), and the second Ph.D. degree (1997) are from Herzen State Pedagogical University.  She has lectured at the University of Birmingham, Alabama, University of Helsinki, and the University of Hong Kong.  Her research interests include Multiculturalism, Law and Civil Society, History of American Political Justice.  She has published 160 artciles and textbooks, and 5 monographs. These monographs include: “The Phenomenon of Political Knowledge” and “Civil Society and Creating of Civic Virtues: Problems of the Theory of Law”. She is the secretary of the Committee responsible for the European region. She also participated at the XIX World IPSA Congress in Durban (South Africa, 2003), the XX World IPSA Congress in Fukuoka (Japan, 2006), the International Conference of RC4 and RC35 in Tampa, FL (U.S.A., 2005), and the International Conference of RC4 and RC35 in St. Lous, MO (U.S.A., 2007). Dr. Smorgunova organized the International Conference of RC35 at Herzen State Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg (Russia, 2004).

Cheng Han Tan
National University of Singapore Faculty of Law
Singapore

Amy Tsanga
University of Zimbabwe Faculty of Law
Zimbabwe

Amy Tsanga teaches law at the University of Zimbabwe. She is also the Deputy Director of the Southern and Eastern African Regional Centre for Women’s Law (SEARCWL), a regional post graduate institute specialising in women and the law, and one of the four Departments in the Faculty of Law. She teaches Theories and Perspectives in Women’s Law and Women Law and Social Justice Strategies. Combining activism and academia, she has worked extensively on issues of human rights and access to justice and has published in these areas. She has served on several advisory boards in the past which include the Swedish Foundation for Human Rights; The Body Shop Human Rights award and she has also been the Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association. Among her latest publication is Women & Law: Innovative approaches to teaching research and analysis published by Weaver Press, 2011.

Fernando Villarreal-Gonda
Facultad Libre de Derecho Monterrey
Mexico