Costa Rica Summer Program in Ciudad Colòn

Faculty and Directors

Cesare Romano
Associate Professor of Law

MA (Laurea), University of Milano
D.E.S. (Diplôme des Études Superieures), Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva
LL.M., New York University Law School
PhD (Doctorat), Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva

Cesare P. Romano is an Associate Professor of Law at Loyola Law School, and the on site program director for the 2008 Costa Rica Summer Program. Prof. Romano received an MA (Laurea) in Political Science, University of Milano (1992); D.E.S. (Diplôme des Études Superieures), Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva (1995); LL.M., New York University Law School (1997); PhD (Doctorat), Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva (1999). He holds degrees in three different disciplines (political science, international relations and law) from three countries (Italy, Switzerland and the United States), and is a polyglot. His scholarship and teaching reflect the variety of his background.

His expertise is in public international law, and in particular dispute settlement, international environmental law, international human rights and international criminal and humanitarian law. However, it is probably the field international courts and tribunals where he has made to date the greatest contribution, publishing numerous articles and four books. Since 1997 he has directed the Project on International Courts and Tribunals (www.pict-pcti.org), an international research project shared by scholars across the globe becoming a world-renowned authority in the field.

Before joining Loyola Law School, Prof. Romano taught as visiting or adjunct professor in a number of institutions in the U.S. and Europe. He teaches International Protection of Human Rights; International Law; and International Environmental Law.

Ruth Mackenzie
Principal Research Fellow and Visiting Lecturer
Deputy Director, Centre for International Courts and Tribunals

BSc (Econ.) (London)
LL.M Public International Law (Distinction) (London)

Ruth Mackenzie joined the Faculty of Laws in March 2002 as Principal Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Centre for International Courts and Tribunals (CICT). Ruth was a lawyer at the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD) from 1994 to 2003, serving as director of FIELD’s Biodiversity and Marine Resources programme from 1997 onwards. Before joining FIELD, she qualified as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales. She is a director of the Project on International Courts and Tribunals.

Ruth also worked extensively in the field of international environmental law, particularly in relation to biodiversity and biotechnology. She has been involved in wide range of capacity-building activities associated with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, and has acted as an adviser to intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations on the implementation of these and other multilateral environmental agreements. Ruth acted as a consultant to the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity during the negotiations of the Cartagena Protocol, and has since prepared a negotiating history of the Protocol for the Secretariat. She also led a three year multidisciplinary research project, funded by the UK Department for International Development, on Globalisation and the International Governance of Modern Biotechnology.

She has also conducted numerous research and other projects in the field of international dispute settlement, focusing in particular on access of non-state actors to international courts and tribunals, and on the independence of the international judiciary. She is currently working on CICT’s AHRC project on international judicial selection processes, and acts as Co-Secretary of the International Law Association Study Group on the Practice and Procedure of International Tribunals. She is co-editor of the Manual on International Courts and Tribunals (Butterworths 1999), which is presently being revised for publication of the second edition in 2009.

She is a member of the International Law Association Committee on International Law and Biotechnology, and a member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law. She is an Adjunct Senior Fellow of the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies, and in 2005 was a Visiting Senior Fellow at Melbourne University.

Peter Tiersma
Professor of Law and Joseph Scott Fellow
Director of International Programs

BA, with distinction, Stanford University, Phi Beta Kappa
JD, University of California Berkeley, Order of the Coif
PhD, University of California San Diego

Peter Tiersma was born in the Netherlands and immigrated with his parents to the United States. Following graduation from Stanford University, he was a Fulbright Fellow to the Netherlands and later received a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California, San Diego. Subsequently, he obtained a J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California in Berkeley. He clerked for Justice Stanley Mosk of the California Supreme Court, worked in private practice for three years, and has been teaching at Loyola Law School since 1990. Tiersma is the author of the books Frisian Reference Grammar (Fryske Akademy, 1999), Legal Language (University of Chicago Press, 1999), and Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice (co-authored with Lawrence Solan, University of Chicago Press, 2005). He has written several articles on the relationship between language and law. Tiersma has also lectured widely on these topics, most recently in Germany and China.