Law School

Description of Activities

With each new technological advance, the world becomes both smaller and more complex. The rapid increase in economic integration, inter-governmental cooperation, and the frequency and complexity of international business transactions have brought about a profusion of new legal challenges. International human rights problems have highlighted a need for legal experts who have an understanding of other countries' cultures, as well as their legal systems.

The School of Law's International and Comparative Law Program offers training in international health law, international environmental law, international intellectual property right law, public international law and international human rights law, international civil litigation, international business transactions, European Union law, international trade law, comparative labor law, comparative constitutional law, South African law, and the Civil Law tradition (especially the French and German legal systems). The Program includes a rich and diverse curriculum and is supported by a series of externship and foreign study opportunities. For further details please see http://www.law.umaryland.edu/specialty/international/

Furthermore the Law school offers a dual degree program JD/ MPH with an opportunity to train in international public health. For more details please see http://www.law.umaryland.edu/aboutus/dual_degree.asp#MPH

Field Experience Opportunities

The University of Maryland School of Law offers a series of externships and foreign study opportunities as part of the International and Comparative Law Program and some of which could apply for the MPH GH capstone experience:

  • South Africa Externship Program

    Since 1989, the School of Law has offered students the opportunity to participate in an externship program in the country of South Africa. The program provides students an opportunity to work as externs during the academic year at human rights and civil rights law organizations. Since its inception, the school has sent nearly forty student externs to South Africa. Participating students have provided direct legal services to clients, participated in the development of impact litigation, and monitored legislative developments on emerging areas of human rights law. Students are supervised in their field placement by a South African lawyer and by a University of Maryland faculty supervisor. Upon successful completion of the Externship, students receive 13 credits and satisfy the School of Law's experiential learning requirement.

  • World Health Organization Externship Program

    The School of Law, in conjunction with The World Health Organization (WHO) Division of Health and Human Rights, offers three-month externship opportunities during the academic year in Geneva, Switzerland. WHO externships provide an opportunity for students to participate in the work of the Organization and to expand their knowledge and understanding of WHO's goals, policies and activities.

    Externs participate in a broad spectrum of activities, depending on their interests and skills. Some examples include supporting WHO's interaction with the United Nations human rights treaty monitoring bodies, in particular through monitoring of the sessions of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR); attendance of the six-week session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights as an Observer for WHO; making brief weekly reports on the Commission's discussions and helping to co-ordinate WHO's statements to this body; and conducting research or writing a short paper on a subject relating to health and human rights. For more details refer to http://www.law.umaryland.edu/dept/academics/externships.asp

  • Local Externships

    The high level of international legal and commercial activity in the Baltimore-Washington area as well as proximity to the seat of the national government create a multiplicity of opportunities for students seeking practical experience in the field of international law. The School of Law has a well-established externship program that allows students to gain academic credit from experiential learning at public and non-profit institutions. Under this program, students may arrange semester-long practical courses of study, for example, with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Senate, Maryland General Assembly, NIH, FDA, and trade and advocacy organizations.  Fore more information, contact Virginia Rowthorn, J.D., Managing Director, Law and Health Care Program at vrowthorn@law.umaryland.edu. 

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