The Procedural Aspects of International Law (PAIL) Institute :: Board of Trustees

PAIL Institute Board of Trustees

[ Black and White Photo of Doctor Weston ]

Dr. Burns H. Weston

Bessie Dutton Murray Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus
College of Law
The University of Iowa
burns-weston@uiowa.edu

Retired from full-time law teaching in May 1999, Professor Weston, a graduate of Oberlin College (B.A., 1956) and the Yale Law School (LL.B., 1993; J.S.D., 1970), is the Bessie Dutton Murray Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at The University of Iowa. While a full-time member of the Iowa faculty, he served as Associate Dean for International and Comparative Legal Studies and as Chair of The University of Iowa's International and Comparative Law Program (ICLP). Currently, he directs The University of Iowa Center for Human Rights and otherwise lectures, teaches, and participates in human rights missions around the world. His teaching and research interests center on international jurisprudence, international human rights law, the laws of war, the law of state responsibility (particularly in relation to the concerns of developing countries), and international environmental law.

Professor Weston is the author of many books and articles. Among his most recent books are The Future of International Human Rights (Transnational Publishers, Inc., 1999) (with Professor Stephen P. Marks of Harvard University), International Claims: Their Settlement by Lump Sum Agreement, 1975-1995 (Transnational Publishers, Inc., 1999) (with Richard B. Lillich, late of the University of Virginia, and David J. Bederman of Emory University), and International Environmental Law and World Order: A Problem-Oriented Coursebook (West Group, 2d ed. 1999) (with Lakshman D. Guruswamy, Sir Geoffrey W.R. Palmer, & Jonathan C. Carlson). Among Professor Weston's other major writings are the award-winning textbook International Law and World Order: A Problem-Oriented Coursebook (West Group, 3rd ed. 1998) (with professors Richard A. Falk of Princeton University and Hilary Charlesworth of the Australian National University) and the annotated and annually updated multi-volume collection entitled International Law and World Order: Basic Documents, first published by Transnational Publishers, Inc. in 1994.

Professor Weston is also a member of the editorial boards of several professional journals, including the American Journal of International Law on whose Board of Editors he now serves as Honorary Editor. He serves, additionally, as Series Editor of the Procedural Aspects of International Law Monograph Series. Additionally, he is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS), a life member of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a member of the Board of Trustees of the Procedural Aspects of International Law Institute (PAIL), and a former Vice-President (1992-94) of the American Society of International Law (ASIL). He serves also on the Board of Directors of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP), as Chair of the Academic Council of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), as a member of the Advisory Council of the International Human Rights Law Group (IHRLG), and as a founding member of the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights (MCHR).

Conversant in French, Professor Weston is widely traveled and has lectured around the world and throughout the United States on many occasions. He also has participated in numerous human rights fact-finding and conflict mitigation missions abroad, including Cuba, the West Bank and Gaza, Kosovo, and the Republic of Georgia. In 1985, he was a member of the human rights observer delegation that met armed resistance when accompanying then Korean opposition leader (now President of the Republic of Korea) Kim Dae Jung upon Mr. Kim's return to Seoul from forced exile in the United States.

Professor Weston is a member of the Iowa and New York bars. He spends approximately two months of each year in Sweden (the homeland of his Swedish wife) and three months of each year at his vacation home in the High Peaks Region of the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York.

Additional information on Dr. Weston and his work can be found at his personal home page: http://www.burnsweston.com.

PAIL Institute Publications by Dr. Weston: