About Us
IILJ Staff
Simon Chesterman
Senior Fellow
Simon Chesterman is Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Law and Justice at New York University School of Law, as well as Global Professor and Director of the Law School's Singapore Program. He is also an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law.
Educated in Melbourne, Beijing, Amsterdam, and Oxford, Chesterman has written widely on international institutions, international criminal law, human rights, the use of force, and post-conflict reconstruction.
Prior to joining NYU, he was a Senior Associate at the International Peace Academy and Director of UN Relations at the International Crisis Group in New York. He has previously worked for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Belgrade and interned at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha. His teaching experience includes periods at the Universities of Melbourne, Oxford, Southampton, and Columbia.
Chesterman is the author of You, The People: The United Nations, Transitional Administration, and State-Building (Oxford University Press, 2004) and Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law (Oxford University Press, 2001), which was awarded the American Society of International Law Certificate of Merit. He is the editor, with Michael Ignatieff and Ramesh Thakur, of Making States Work: State Failure and the Crisis of Governance (United Nations University Press, 2005) and of Civilians in War (Lynne Rienner, 2001). He regularly contributes to international law and political science journals, as well as mass media publications such as the International Herald Tribune.
Dr Simon Chesterman, NYU Faculty
Angelina Fisher
Program Director
Angelina Fisher is the Program Director for the IILJ. She received her LL.M. in International Legal Studies from New York University School of Law in 2004 and her LL.B. from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Canada in 2000.
Prior to joining the IILJ, Angelina was a Helton Fellow at Human Rights First, focusing on U.S. and international law related to counterterrorism operations and national security policy and practice. In 2004-2005, Angelina was a Research Scholar at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at New York University School of Law, where she was one of the primary researchers and authors of the reports, Torture by Proxy: International and Domestic Law Applicable to "Extraordinary Renditions," issued jointly by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York CHRGJ, and Beyond Guantanamo: Transfers to Torture One Year After Rasul v. Bush, issued by the CHRGJ. Angelina is also a co-author of Tortured Logic Renditions to Justice, Extraordinary Rendition, and Human Rights Law. Before embarking on her human rights career, Angelina was an attorney at the New York law firm Shearman & Sterling, LLP.
Alma Fuentes
Director of Operations and Communications
Alma Fuentes' graduate studies in Luso-Brazilian Literature include a year in the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil and an MA degree from the University of Texas at Austin. She obtained her BA in Modern Languages from the University of Puerto Rico. Prior to joining the IILJ she worked as a Legal Secretary, Paralegal and Translator, among other interesting contributions to different groups and projects.
Sarah Dadush
Institute Fellow
Sarah Dadush is an IILJ Fellow administering the Institute’s Financing Development program, led by Professor Kevin Davis. Her research focuses on the regulation of privately generated (concessional) capital flows to developing countries, in particular through social investment and programs that blend social and financial interests.
Her recent publications include “Profiting in (Red): The Need for Enhanced Transparency in Cause-Related Marketing” and “The Privatization of Development Assistance: An Overview” (with Davis) (both forthcoming in the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics) and “Getting Climate-Related Conditionality Right” in Climate Finance: Regulatory and Funding Strategies for Climate Change and Global Development, Edited by Richard B. Stewart, Benedict Kingsbury and Bryce Rudyk, (New York University Press, 2009) (with Davis).
Prior to joining the IILJ, she was an associate at the global law firm Allen & Overy for three and a half years in the banking and litigation groups, where she had the opportunity to work on project financings and investor-state arbitration. She obtained her JD and LL.M. degrees in 2004 from Duke Law School. While at Duke, she chaired the International Law Society and founded the Law School's first International Development Fellowship, which has funded student internships and research projects in developing countries.
Megan Donaldson
Program Officer
Megan Donaldson holds an LL.M. in Legal Theory from New York University Law School (2009), and an LL.B. and B.A. (History) (2006) from the University of Melbourne. Prior to commencing the LL.M. she worked in competition litigation and as an associate to Justice Hayne of the High Court of Australia. During her LL.B. studies she served as a member, assistant editor and ultimately co-editor of the Melbourne Journal of International Law. She undertook research projects in international and comparative constitutional law, and served as editorial assistant for the Public Law Review, and for Anne Orford (ed), International Law and Its Others.
Luke Eric Peterson
Investment Law Project Affiliate
Luke Eric Peterson is a journalist and researcher specializing in the international law regime governing foreign direct investment (FDI). He is the Publisher of a specialized news service, InvestmentArbitrationReporter.com, and contributes occasional reporting and analysis to various mainstream media publications including The Financial Times, The Economist, and (as a regular columnist) the FT's FDI Magazine.
Cristina Ferraro
Consultant
Cristina Ferraro received her law degree summa cum laude from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in September 2005, graduating first in her class. During her studies Cristina worked as a legal trainee at Miranda & Amado Abogados, a leading Peruvian law firm. Upon graduation, she joined the Firm as an Associate Lawyer, practicing mainly in the fields of corporate law, securities, foreign investment, energy (electricity and oil), banking, antitrust regulation, and dispute resolution (administrative disputes, national and international arbitration). For the last two years, she has been working with the Institute for Liberty and Democracy; a non-profit organization based in Lima and presided by economist Hernando De Soto, dedicated to assisting governments in the implementation of legal reforms that provide citizens the necessary legal tools to participate in local and international markets. She participated as part of the legal team in the Project for the Incorporation of Entrepreneurial Assets to Formality in Mexico.
Yunpeng Fan
Consultant
Yunpeng Fan is a Consultant for the IILJ. He graduated from NYU School of Law with an LL.M. in International Legal Studies in 2008, where he was a Hugo Grotius Scholar. He also obtained LL.B. with university honors from Wuhan University and LL.M. in International Law from Peking University.
Yunpeng was a Research Scholar for the IILJ from 2008-2009. He organized the GAL Workshop in Beijing and translated the GAL homepage as well as the overview article of the Global Administrative Law project “The Emergence of Global Administrative Law” into Chinese. He was also a graduate editor of NYU Journal of International Law and Politics during his year at NYU. Yunpeng has conducted research on responsibility of international organizations and application of WTO rules in China. He also carried out field investigation on human rights of minorities in the Sichuan province and environment protection in the Inner Mongolia, China.
Lorenzo Casini
Consultant
Lorenzo Casini is a Consultant for the IILJ. He is a tenured Assistant Professor at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, where he teaches Town and Country Planning Law and Cultural Property Law at the “L. Quaroni” Faculty of Architecture. He is also Fellow of the Institute for Research on Public Administration (IRPA).
After graduating in Law cum laude in 1999, he obtained a Ph.D. in European and Comparative Administrative Law from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 2004. From 2000 to 2006 he carried out academic and research activities in Administrative Law under Professor Sabino Cassese at the same institution, where he also worked as a Research Fellow from 2002 to 2006. In 2000 he acted as consultant to the Italian Government on the Regulatory Impact Analysis Project. From 2008-2009 he was a Research Fellow for the Global Administrative Project.
He has written articles on cultural property, urban planning law, and comparative and global administrative law. His publications include a book on Town and Country Planning (L’equilibrio degli interessi nel governo del territorio, Giuffrè, 2005), and he is co-editor of Global Administrative Law: Cases, Materials, Issues (2nd edition, 2008). He is currently researching a book on global sports law.
Euan MacDonald
Consultant
Euan MacDonald is a Consultant for the IILJ. He graduated in Law from the University of Edinburgh in 1999, where he was awarded a first class honors degree and the Gilchrist Prize in International Law, before going on to gain a Masters degree from the same institution in 2000, again focusing on public international law and legal theory. He went on to obtain a PhD in law from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, in October 2006, with a thesis on critical approaches to international legal theory. From 2005-2006 he was a Visiting Fellow on the Programme for the Study of International Organizations at the Graduate Institute for International Studies in Geneva. He was a Research Officer for the IILJ Global Administrative Law project from 2007-2009.
Some recent publications include the co-edition of the collected volume International Migration Law: Developing Paradigms and Key Challenges (published by Asser Press in 2007), and a UNESCO report on the prospective for ratification of the International Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers among the countries of the European Economic Area. He is also co-editor of Global Administrative Law: Cases, Materials, Issues (2nd edition, 2008). Euan’s current research interests range from global administrative law and global constitutionalism to the theory of international law and the philosophy of rhetoric.
Surabhi Ranganathan
Consultant
Surabhi Ranganathan is a Consultant for the IILJ. She graduated from the NYU School of Law with an LL.M in 2006, where she was an Arthur T. Vanderbilt Scholar. She also holds a B.A. LL.B (Hons, 2005) degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore where she graduated third in her class with two gold medals, including the VR Reddy Best Student Advocate prize. In 2004, she clerked with Justice Brijesh Kumar of the Supreme Court of India.
During her year at NYU, Surabhi worked as a research assistant for Prof. Thomas Franck. She assisted with the drafting of several chapters for his casebook, Law and Practice of the United Nations (OUP, 2008). She has interned with a number of international organizations, including the UNHCR and the UNICEF. In 2004, she was part of the first Indian team to win the Asia Pacific Round of the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition in Sydney.
Surabhi is the author of "Reconceptualizing the Boundaries of Humanitarian Assistance: The Importance of Being 'Earnest'", 40(1) John Marshall Law Review 195 (2006).
Chia Lehnardt
Consultant
Chia Lehnardt is a consultant to the IILJ, working with Simon Chesterman as co-editor of an Oxford University Press book resulting from the IILJ's Private Military Firms project. She is currently a doctoral student in Berlin. In 2005-06, she was a full-time Program Officer at the IILJ.
She studied law in Berlin (1st State Examination, 2003), Oxford (Diploma in Legal Studies with Distinction, 2001), Florence (EUI Academy of European Law, Diploma in Human Rights Law, 2002) and at NYU (LLM, International Legal Studies, 2005) with a focus on Public International Law, European Union Law and Constitutional Law. Prior to coming to NYU, she worked at the office of the legal advisor to the socialdemocratic parliamentary party and with a law firm specializing in public law.
Ana Lara
Ana Lara (Harvard AB, 97), worked with the IILJ from 2004-2006. She is currently writing fiction. Her first novel, Erzulie's Skirt (Fall 2006) has been published by Redbone Press. She is currently in Austin, Texas working with The Austin Project.
