Dr. Gabriel Escobedo has been appointed the Law School’s inaugural assistant dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Escobedo has strong ties to Indiana University, earning his Ph.D. in Anthropology of Performing Arts and Latinx Culture from the university in 2023. He was an assistant instructor in IU’s Department of Anthropology from 2013-15.

“Gabriel will be a strong leader for our DEI efforts, and we’re excited to welcome him and his family back to Bloomington,” Maurer School of Law Dean Christiana Ochoa said. “His experience and success working collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders at Michigan Technological University stood out to us throughout the search process.”

Escobedo has most recently served as MTU’s director for its Center for Diversity and Inclusion, a position he’s held since 2021. There he’s overseen an annual budget for all center expenses and programming, developed and implemented retention and graduation efforts for historically underrepresented students, and led the center’s staff.

Additionally, Escobedo has overseen state-sponsored grants, mentoring program for first-year underrepresented students, led several trainings for faculty, staff, and students, and worked with key stakeholders to generate funds to support programming across campus.

“The Maurer School of Law has a rich history of diversity and inclusion, and I’m excited to start working with the outstanding students there to build on that deep tradition,” Escobedo said.

Recognizing the importance of DEI efforts, Ochoa elevated the position from the director level to an assistant deanship, emphasizing the school’s priority of creating and maintaining a welcoming and collegial environment where all students can thrive.

Escobedo follows Laura Fonseca, who was appointed Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs and Initiatives with the Law School Admissions Council earlier this year.

Escobedo’s office is located in the Law School’s Graduate Legal Studies office on the second floor.

Environmental champions and conservationists will mark the 50^th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act later this month. That is the law requiring federal agencies to use all methods necessary to prevent extinctions and ensure that federal actions not jeopardize the continued existence of species on the brink of disappearing from the face of the Earth.

In the leadup to the December 27^th anniversary, several publications have begun examining the Act’s history and impact over five decades.

Science, the world’s third-most influential scholarly journal based on Google Scholar citations, invited experts from around the country to look ahead as well for its Insights Policy Forum. Indiana University Maurer School of Law Professor Rob Fischman is the lead author on one of those pieces. The result can be found in the December 21 issue of Science.

Fischman and Vanderbilt Law’s J.B. Ruhl  examine the role of science in preventing extinctions and discusses how scientific advancements pose new challenges to and opportunities for improving the implementation of the law.

They argue that agencies need to go beyond the conservation biology, genetics, and other life sciences if they are to succeed in their congressional mandate to prevent extinctions.

One of Fischman’s main points is that the Endangered Species Act’s emphasis on “best available science” should encompass the lessons of the social sciences.

He draws from the work of Indiana University’s late Nobel Laureate, Elinor Ostrom, to show how to encourage more collaborative conservation successes. He argues that an important research priority should be “to understand better how to prompt human behavioral changes.”

Like all environmental law, the ESA “is—first and foremost—law governing humans, not the forces of nature,” the authors conclude.

Fischman is one of the few legal experts who regularly publishes in both law and scientific, peer-reviewed, publications, making him a natural choice to lead this effort.

Science has been at the center of important scientific discovery since its founding in 1880. It is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s oldest and largest general science organization.

A publication co-authored by Indiana University Maurer School of Law Dean Christiana Ochoa and 2021 Law School alumna Kacey Cook has been selected to appear in the 17^th edition of the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review.

The Review, a joint publication of the Environmental Law Reporter and Vanderbilt University School of Law, compiles some of the top environmental law and policy publications into an annual volume.

“Deals in the Heartland: Renewable Energy Projects, Local Resistance, and How Law Can Help” was authored by Ochoa, Cook, and University of Minnesota Law School third-year student Hanna Weil and was published in January 2023 in the Minnesota Law Review.

The article, together with two others, was selected from a pool of hundreds of law journal articles on environmental topics published between August 2022 and July 2023, selected nationally for inclusion.

“The objective of ELPAR is to make the year’s best environmental law and policy ideas more accessible to policymakers and practitioners by publishing abbreviated versions of the academic pieces selected,” said representatives from Vanderbilt and the ELI.

“Deals in the Heartland” provides a rich and textured understanding of the rapidly emerging opposition to renewable energy projects in rural communities enmeshed in legal, political, and social conflicts. The co-authors analyzed why and how communities, using county ordinances, township regulations, and electoral processes, mobilize against renewable energy companies and repel commercial wind projects. The article describes the surprising and complex interplay of national, state, and municipal law governing the transition to renewable energy, and provides tangible reform proposals that can address this emerging policy crisis.

Ochoa is Dean of the Maurer School of Law and Herman B Wells Class of 1950 Endowed Professor at Indiana University. Cook, a 2021 graduate of the Law School, is now the Constance and Terry Marbach Conservation Attorney with the Conservation Law Center, a close partner of the Law School. Weil is expected to earn her juris doctorate from the University of Minnesota Law School in 2024.

In addition to the three articles selected for inclusion in the ELPAR, four were also selected as honorable mentions.

Vanderbilt and ELI will co-host a hybrid conference in Washington, DC in April 2024, bringing together the authors and commenters for an audience of practitioners and policymakers.

The Indiana University Maurer and McKinney Schools of Law jointly will convene leading scholars and practitioners to discuss the implications of the 2023 United States Supreme Court case of Sackett v. EPA. The event, “Sackett v. EPA: What the Supreme Court’s Decision Means for Regulation and Wetlands Conservation,” will take place November 10 in the Wynne Courtroom and Steve Tuchman and Reed Bobrick Atrium at IU McKinney in Indianapolis.

The Sackett decision is one of the most significant environmental opinions issued by the Supreme Court, and it resolves a longstanding debate surrounding the scope of the federal Clean Water Act. By narrowing the scope of the Clean Water Act, the decision raises several issues. The participants will discuss the case, its history, and the court’s opinion. They also will discuss the implications of the case moving forward on a national level, and how it might affect the protection of the nation’s wetlands, as well as the implications of a narrower scope of the Clean Water Act in Indiana.

Rob Fischman, Maurer’s George P. Smith, II Distinguished Professor of Law, said the Sackett decision was overlooked by some, but is no less important than other critical environmental decisions from the courts.

“Although it received less press coverage than West Virginia v. EPA, Sackett made more radical changes to federal environmental law and public regulation,” Fischman said. “The decision dramatically shrank the coverage of the Clean Water Act, imperiling Congress’ statutory objective of restoring and maintaining the physical, chemical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters. Discharges of pollutants into vast acreages of wetlands and tributary waters that formerly required permits may now occur without any public scrutiny, pollution controls, or mitigation as a result of Sackett. States may fill the regulatory void, but many will not. This conference will bring together leading environmental scholars from around the country to discuss the effects of this important ruling.”

Professors Kalen and Fischman will offer welcoming remarks to kick-off the event.

“This will be a great opportunity to learn about and explore how the Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA will impact the administration of the Clean Water Act and the protection of wetlands nationally and here in Indiana, as well as how the decision reflects the court’s changing approach to examining decisions by administrative agencies,” said Professor Sam Kalen. Kalen is the Visiting Robert H. McKinney family Chair in Environmental Law.

“When my friend, Sam Kalen, accepted an appointment as the Visiting Robert H. McKinney Family Chair in Environmental Law, he generously offered to share a portion of the McKinney gift that supports research and conferences,” Fischman said. “With six of our faculty participating, this conference showcases Maurer’s strength in environmental law.”

The first panel will be moderated by IU Maurer Professor John Applegate. This panel will discuss “Statutory interpretation and agency deference: What can we expect in future litigation?” Panelists will include Professor William Buzbee of Georgetown Law, Professor Kalen, Professor Mark Squillace of Colorado Law, and Professor William Weeks of IU Maurer.

Professor Fischman will moderate the second panel, which will consider the topic: “Private Ordering: How will property owners, land trusts, and corporations respond to the decrease in regulation?” Discussants will include Professor Christian Freitag of IU Maurer School of Law and the Conservation Law Center (CLC), Professor Steph Tai of the University of Wisconsin Law School, and Jonathan Wood of the Property and Environment Research Center.

Panel three will discuss “Federal agency Implementation: How will the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers change their implementation of the CWA?” Kacey Cook of the Conservation Law Center will serve as moderator. Panelists will be Professor Mark Davis of Tulane Law School, and IU Maurer J.D. students Ryan Day and Noah Hines.

The final panel of the day will discuss the topic, “Indiana Wetlands and Tributary Waters: What should Indiana do to address the gap between the reduction in Clean Water Act jurisdiction and existing state law?” Greg Ellis of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce will serve as moderator. Panelists include IU McKinney J.D. student Seth Marvin Engdahl, the CLC’s Kim Ferraro, and Rachele Baker of Little River Consultants.

The program carries with it 6.0 hours of free Indiana continuing legal education credit with a required registration. Lunch also will be provided. To learn more and register, visit the IU McKinney website.

An organ donor whose gift of life inspired a career in national transplant operations and beyond. A Fort Wayne native who rose to the C-Suite of some of the country’s top medical device and health technology companies. A leading business leader who has used her legal skills to help large, complex companies mitigate risks at home and abroad. And a young alumnus who has already made his mark in his native Michigan, where he advises one of the nation’s most recognizable governors.

The four recipients of the 2023 Maurer School of Law’s Distinguished Service Awards—Macey Leigh Levan ’11, Dave Milne ’94, Kim Richardson ’06, and Alex Thibodeau ’18—have set a remarkable standard for success in their careers and communities.

They were honored Friday (Sept. 29) in a standing-room only ceremony in the DeLaney Moot Court Room.

“These awards honor graduates of the Law School who have distinguished themselves and served their communities and our school in ways that far exceed traditional business, professional, and civic duties, of which there are many,” said Dean Christiana Ochoa. Ochoa said the awards were timely given the Law School’s recent designation as the #3 school for public service in government by preLaw magazine.

“We’re just getting started when it comes to public interest law and public service,” she said. “We are going to put ourselves on the map.”

This year’s DSA recipients are:

Macey Leigh Levan. A 2011 graduate of the Law School, Levan earned a PhD in Health Policy and Management and International Research Ethics in 2016 from the IU Fairbanks School of Public Health. She is currently an associate professor of surgery and population health at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, and the director of the Center for Surgical and Transplant Applied Research Qualitative Core at the NYU Langone Transplant Institute.  Her team’s work to operationalize vaccination trials for the immunocompromised during the COVID-19 pandemic was applauded and recognized by Dr. Anthony Fauci. She served a three-year term as director of the national transplant system—the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network—under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, work inspired by the donation of her own kidney to a cousin in need. Levan’s award was accepted on her behalf by her father, Milt Thompson ’79, who earned the Law School’s inaugural Distinguished Service Award in 1997.

Dave Milne began his legal career at Bose McKinney & Evans and then practiced for several years at Scopelitis, Garvin, Light, Hanson & Feary before joining Steak n Shake, Inc., where he became Vice President and General Counsel. In 2009, Milne joined Symmetry Medical, Inc., where he worked as general counsel, senior vice president of human resources and chief compliance officer. Following Symmetry Medical’s sale, he remained with a former division, Symmetry Surgical Inc., as general counsel and senior vice president of Business Development. After Symmetry Surgical’s sale in 2022, Milne joined Natus Medical, Inc., an ArchiMed Portfolio Company, as chief HR officer and chief administrative officer. Milne and his wife Meagan are longtime supporters of the Dean Fromm Memorial Fund, the Law School’s Fund for Excellence, and IU Athletics. He has served the school as an adjunct professor and on its Alumni Board.

Kim Richardson is a strategic business leader and forward-thinking health, safety, and security attorney. She currently serves as of counsel at Conn Maciel Carey in Washington, DC., as an adjunct professor at Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law, and as a consultant for the Wilmington University School of Law in Delaware. Previously, Richardson worked in-house at Amazon Web Services and DuPont, and in the federal government. She serves on the Law School’s Alumni Board, the Advisory Board for the Delaware Chapter of the National Alliance of Mental Illness, and the Board of Directors for the Delaware Chapter of the National Audobon Society. She previously served as a member of the Legal Steering Committee for the National Safety Council. In 2008, The Network Journal named her one of the nation’s top 40 Under Forty African-Americans, and in 2012, she received the United States Postmaster General’s D.R.I.V.E Award (Delivering Results, Innovation, Value, and Efficiency).

Alex Thibodeau. Just five years out of law school, Thibodeau was appointed director of appointments in the administration of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. In that capacity he serves as senior advisor for gubernatorial appointments to the judiciary and cabinet, as well as the more than 240 state boards and commissions. Prior to this, he was an associate attorney at Varnum LLP, where he focused primarily on data privacy and cybersecurity, as well as advising autonomous vehicle companies on compliance issues related to emerging technology. His background includes significant experience in civil litigation, telecommunication, municipal/administrative law, utility franchise agreements, and regulatory compliance. Thibodeau is passionate about being a leader within the community. He currently serves as a trustee to the Grand Rapids Bar Association—where he is chair of the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee and former president of the Young Lawyers Section. Thibodeau also sits on the Advisory Council of the Young Lawyers Section of the State Bar of Michigan. Outside of the legal field, Thibodeau sits on the Board of Trustees for the Grand Rapids Art Museum and routinely volunteers with other non-profit entities in West Michigan. During his time in Law School, he served as president of the Student Bar Association and on the editorial board for the Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design and as notes editor for the Indiana Journal of Social Equality.

Four distinguished women judges from the Middle East and North Africa—including the first female judge in Jordanian history—will visit the Indiana University Bloomington campus Sept. 25-26 for a conference titled “Women Judges in Dialogue,” where they will discuss their own experience as women in the judiciary as well as issues surrounding constitutional adjudication in the region. They will be joined by faculty from the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies and the Maurer School of Law.

Sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Middle East (CSME) at HLS and the Center for Constitutional Democracy (CCD) at the Law School, the judges will also participate in a panel discussion, “Her Excellency: A Conversation with Women Judges From the Constitutional Courts in the MENA Region,” on Monday, Sept. 25 at 5:30 p.m. in the DeLaney Moot Court Room. Christiana Ochoa, dean of the Maurer School of Law, will moderate the discussion, which is open to the public.

Feisal al-Istrabadi (Founding Director of CSME, Michael A. and Laurie Burns McRobbie Professor in Global Strategic Studies and Professor of Central Eurasian Studies at HLS) noted, “These annual symposia are a testament to the intellectual environment fostered at IU Bloomington. There had been a prior relationship between the CCD and the Jordanian Constitutional Court. The partnership between CSME and CCD, in turn, allowed the expansion of that relationship to what it has now become—an annual symposium which is now in its third year, and which has expanded to include other new constitutional courts in the Middle East and North Africa. I cannot imagine another university in the country that could have matched the engagement of the Maurer School faculty and students with the depth of area-studies expertise of the Hamilton Lugar faculty and students to produce this truly historic first—four of the eight women members of constitutional courts in MENA meeting in Bloomington—for any other US university.”

The CCD has a longstanding relationship with the Constitutional Court of Jordan, Walter W. Foskett Professor of Law and CCD Director Susan Williams said, having worked with the court for the past five years on programs and workshops exploring issues of interest to the judges on the court. The organizers hope that this conference will serve as the next step in building a network among women judges in the wider MENA region (together with legal academics) for the purpose of sharing knowledge, experience, and support.

“In recent years, partly in response to the Arab Spring, a number of countries in the Middle East/North Africa region have created new courts to handle constitutional claims,” said Williams. “At the same time, women judges have been gaining recognition and acceptance in these systems. As a result, there are, for the first time, women judges on many of the highest courts in the region. We’re looking forward to bringing four of these judges together for a conversation about their experiences as women on these courts.”

Scheduled participants include:

• Her Excellency Judge Mireille Najm is a member of the Constitutional Council of Lebanon since November 2021. She also teaches Constitutional law at the Faculty of Law of the Saint-Joseph University in Beirut.
• Her Excellency Judge Taghrid Hikmet has been a member of the Constitutional Court of Jordan since October 2020. She became the first female judge in the history of Jordan after being appointed to the Court of Appeal in 1998. In 2003 she was elected by the UN General Assembly to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she served from 2003 to 2011 as the first Arab female judge.
• Her Excellency Judge Maysa Bydoon has been a member of the Constitutional Court of Jordan since June 2022. She is also a Professor of International Law at the School of Law – University of Jordan. Before that, she taught at Al al-Bayt University, where she served as the Dean of the Law School from 2013-2020. Judge Bydoon has served on various governmental and royal committees in Jordan, including most recently the Royal Committee to Modernize the Political System (2021) and the Royal Secondary Committee for Constitutional Amendments (2021).
• Her Excellency Judge Latifa El Khal has served in the Constitutional Court of Morocco since March 2020. Judge El-Khal’s long judicial career started in 1983. Before joining the Constitutional Court, she served as president of the Administrative Court of Appeals in Marrakesh, to which she was appointed in 2011. In 2018, she published a monograph on the responsibilities of states for reparations regarding acts of terrorism.

“This event shows the effect that federal Title VI  funds can have for our programs,” Istrabadi said. “It allows programming at the Hamilton Lugar School to connect directly with other schools throughout the university in ways that would be almost impossible without that funding. It is a part of what makes IUB unique.”

Barbara Bernal Monnroy arrived in the United States from her native Venezuela at the age of 16, with no practical English language knowledge or skills. “Generation Zero,” as she puts it. Though she was a year behind because of the language barrier, Monnroy worked tirelessly to succeed, eventually graduating from a Florida high school with strong enough credentials to earn a place at Davis & Elkins College. She succeeded there, too, in rural West Virginia, earning valedictorian honors and serving as the college’s graduation speaker.

Monnroy was the first person in her family to earn one degree, let alone three—she majored in criminology, political science, and, of all things, English—from a United States college or university. And she broke another barrier in her family’s history when she applied to and enrolled in the Indiana University Maurer School of Law as a 1L in the fall of 2022.

That incredible journey—from non-native English speaker to second-year law student in the span of six years, is one Monnroy and her family are understandably proud of. But she’s not stopping there.

In August 2023, Monnroy helped launch the First Generation Law Students Association, creating a central network of support and camaraderie for students just like her who are the first in their families to attend an institution of higher education.

Monnroy said she had attended First Generation lunches—biannual events that bring together FirstGen students once a semester—put on by the Law School, but wanted to do more.

“I think we can do a lot more to create a community,” she said. “I noticed that a lot of FirstGen students are not in affinity groups, and affinity groups are where you have your people, your community. I noticed the FirstGen students didn’t have something just for them, so I wanted to involve people with different backgrounds, from different socioeconomic statuses, from different everything, really.”

Enter the FGLA.

In its first month of existence, the organization has drawn the interest of more than two-dozen First Generation students, with more expected to join as word of the group’s formation spreads.

Supporting the needs of First Generation students is a growing trend around the country. When the Law School’s Class of 2026 began orientation the second week of August, Professor Don Gjerdingen—himself a FirstGen graduate and now the FGLA faculty advisor—gave a moving speech to the roughly 20 percent of the incoming class that are First Generation students. Gjerdingen recalled his own inspirational path from a working-class family in Minnesota to law professor.

Monnroy said the FGLA plans to host multiple events this coming year, including meet-and-greets with the student body, bring in external speakers, and meetings with FirstGen Law School alumni to forge a bond between the two communities. That connection played out in Monnroy’s first summer internship with the Hon. Jose Rodriguez ’80—another FirstGen graduate—in Miami.

“Being supportive of each other is the most important part of what we want to do,” she said. “We want to help as many people as we can, and provide whatever resources we can to help make them successful in their law school careers.”

The Indiana University Maurer School of Law’s Federalist Society chapter has received the 2023 Benjamin Franklin Award for Spring Breakout Chapter. The award was accepted last month by the chapter’s co-presidents, Nick Clifford and Claudia Eder, at the Federalist Society’s National Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C.

The Benjamin Franklin Award for Spring Breakout Chapter is presented annually to the Federalist Society student chapter that continues successful programming through the end of the year and has an especially strong spring semester.

Eder said the Maurer chapter was recognized for its heightened outreach efforts in the spring 2023 semester, including hosting more than the number of recommended events, high attendance at those events, and an exceptional communications platform to publicize the chapter’s activities.

Eder and Clifford attended the Federalist Society’s three-day National Leadership Conference, where they learned how to be effective leaders of their chapter as well as helping foster debate inside the Law School.

“The idea of fostering debate and presenting ideas that aren’t always necessarily present in the Law School is what drew me to joining the Federalist Society,” Eder said. “Giving students a choice to hear from speakers they might not otherwise get to is something we take great pride in.”

The Indiana Law Federalist Society chapter already has big plans for the 2023-24 year, including a moderated discussion in commemoration of Constitution Day (to be held September 19) and a former White House leader who will discuss the indictments of President Trump on September 26.

Adding to an already impressive list of new faculty, the Indiana University Maurer School of Law is pleased to announce CJ Ryan, of the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, will join the Law School for the start of the spring 2024 semester.

In addition to his role on the Brandeis faculty, Ryan is an affiliated scholar at the American Bar Foundation.

A recognized expert in legal education, trust law, non-profit law, and the law surrounding student loans, Ryan teaches Decedents’ Estates & Trusts, Secured Transactions, and Law & Economics. He has previously taught Property, Tax, and Statistics for Lawyers. In addition to writing in the doctrinal areas in which he teaches, much of his research centers on corporate governance, the legal profession, the economics of higher education, and technology transfer.

“Maurer is a special law school,” Ryan said of his decision to move north. “From afar, I have always admired its rich history and its peerless group of scholars trained in the law & society tradition. Maurer is the kind of place where scholars and students can address why the law is the way it is and shape the conversation around what it can be. More than that, it’s a law school that trains the brightest in the next generation of lawyers—for Indiana and for the world. I’m so excited to be a part of this mission and I feel very fortunate to be joining the Maurer community.”

An interdisciplinary scholar, he has written more than 20 articles that have appeared in law reviews — such as the Alabama Law Review, Georgetown Law Review, Illinois Law Review, and SMU Law Review — specialty journals at NYU, Georgetown, and Notre Dame, and peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Legal Education and Research in Higher Education.

“CJ is a tremendous young scholar and teacher who will bring energy and passion to Baier Hall,” said Indiana Law Dean Christiana Ochoa. “We’re fortunate to have brought in an outstanding group of faculty over the past year, and we’re thrilled CJ will be a part of that class.”

The Law School added seven new members to the faculty—Valena Beety, Yvette Butler, Cindy Cho, Gabrielle Goodwin, Andrew Hammond, Jenn Oliva, and Cynthia Williams—throughout 2023, resulting in one of the school’s strongest hiring seasons in history.

Ryan said he’s excited to continue his research in Bloomington. He just started a project examining the economy of trust litigation in San Francisco, using filings from every trust case heard in the courts of that county over a six-year span.

“So little is known about litigation in the trust law space, and the findings that will emerge from the study will surely shed light about what motivates parties to bring claims in the courts involving trusts,” he said.

On Friday, August 11, and following the recent appointment of Brady Harman and Greg Zoeller, the Center for Constitutional Democracy added two new members to its Advisory Board: Professor Richard Albert (University of Texas at Austin) and Justice Manuel Cepeda (former President of the Constitutional Court of Colombia).

Albert is Professor of World Constitutions and Director of Constitutional Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, founding director of the International Forum on the Future of Constitutionalism, and Co-President of the International Society of Public Law. Currently a member of the Constitutional Reform Committee advising the Government of Jamaica on writing and enacting a new constitution for the country, he has published over 25 books on constitutional democracy, including Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions (Oxford University Press). He has held visiting faculty appointments around the world, including at Universitas Airlangga (Indonesia), Universidad de Especialidades Espiritu Santo (Ecuador), Universidad Externado (Colombia), FGV (Brazil), Maharashtra National Law University Mumbai (India), University of Ottawa (Canada), Reichman University (Israel), University of Toronto (Canada), and Yale University. Formerly a law clerk to the Chief Justice of Canada, Richard Albert holds law and political science degrees from Yale, Oxford, and Harvard.

Justice Manuel Cepeda Espinosa is President Emeritus of the International Association of Constitutional Law and member of the governing board of Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá. From 2013 to 2022 he was one of the agents of Colombia before the International Court of Justice in two delimitation cases initiated by Nicaragua against Colombia. From July 2015 to August 2016, he was part of the negotiating team on transitional justice during the Colombian peace process. He was President of the Constitutional Court of Colombia from 2005 to 2006 and a Justice from 2001 to 2009. He was Dean of the Law School of Universidad de los Andes (1996-2000); Ambassador of Colombia to UNESCO (1993-1995) and to the Helvetic Confederation (1995-1996). He participated in the drafting of the 1991 Colombian Constitution as Presidential Advisor for the Constituent Assembly and Constitutional Drafting for President of the Republic César Gaviria Trujillo (1990-1991); and Presidential Advisor for Legal Affairs for President of the Republic Virgilio Barco Vargas (1987-1990). Justice Cepeda is also the author of several constitutional law books. He graduated magna cum laude from Universidad de los Andes in 1986 and received his LL.M. from Harvard Law School in 1987. In 1993, Justice Cepeda received the Order of Boyacá, in the highest degree of the Great Cross, from the President of the Republic of Colombia.

The CCD Directors would like to extend a warm welcome to Professor Albert and Justice Cepeda, and look forward to their guidance and support during the three years of their term on the Advisory Board.