Email

bratspies@mail.law.cuny.edu

Phone

(718) 340-4505

Office

345F1

Rebecca Bratspies, Associate Professor, joined the faculty of CUNY Law in 2004. Her teaching and scholarly research focus on environmental and public international law, with a particular emphasis on how legal systems govern the global commons and how law can further sustainable development. She has published widely on the topics of environmental liability, international fisheries regulation, and genetically modified food crops. Among her more notable publications in the fields of environmental and international law are Transboundary Harm In International Law: Lessons from the Trail Smelter Arbitration (with Russell A. Miller – Cambridge University Press, 2006), and “Rethinking Decision-making in International Law: A Process-Oriented Inquiry into Sustainable Development,” 32 Yale Journal of International Law 363 (2007). In 2008, she expects the publication of Progress in International Organization (with Russell A. Miller –Martinus Nijhoff Press). Professor Bratspies is a member-scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform and participates in the BioLaw and Agricultural Law blogs.

Before entering academia, Professor Bratspies served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable C. Arlen Beam of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. In 1994, she was selected to be a Henry Luce Foundation Scholar. Professor Bratspies spent a year seconded to the Republic of China (Taiwan) Environmental Protection Administration. Upon her return to the United States, she was a litigation associate with Dechert, Price and Rhoads where she worked with civil rights groups to bring two victorious class action suits challenging Pennsylvania's implementation of welfare reform. She also advised numerous clients on issues of environmental compliance.

Before joining the CUNY faculty in 2004, Professor Bratspies was an Associate Professor at the University of Idaho College of Law. She has also been an acting Assistant Professor of Law and Lawyering at New York University and a visiting Associate Professor at Michigan State School of Law.

With Professor Russell A. Miller (University of Idaho College of Law), Professor Bratspies instituted and convenes the Annual Idaho International Law Symposium. The symposium brings leading international law scholars and practitioners together for a weekend of intimate and dynamic conversation on a topic in international law. Past symposia have explored topics including Transboundary Harm, Post-Conflict Justice, International Organization, Indigenous Land Rights, and Fair Trade Under International Law.

Professor Bratspies earned her B.A. in biology from Wesleyan University and her J.D., cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania.