UB Law School Students Travel to Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia

Law professor Isabel Marcus and six of her students are travelling to Europe to study how national law can help stabilize post-conflict countries.

Six University at Buffalo law students and their professor are studying how national law can help stabilize the chaos in countries struggling from war and civil strife during a four-week educational seminar to Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia.

Isabel Marcus, the UB Law School professor who organized the seminar and is accompanying the students, says she believes the trip is the first of its kind among any of the country’s law schools.

Marcus, former chair of UB’s Department of Women’s Studies who has made numerous professional trips to these post-conflict countries working with human rights advocates, says the students — all in their mid-20s to early-30s — have impressed her with their interest and zeal for their upcoming experience.

“I believe that this program is an innovation in the school curriculum,” says Marcus. “It allows students to study a subject intensively on site after spending a semester learning from books and documents. It also will show them how complex the issues of identity, nationalism and the rule of law are in a post-war zone like the region that was formerly Yugoslavia.”

“The students have studied with me in an intensive seminar during the fall 2008 semester,” says Marcus. “During their trip they will keep journals; upon their return they will write a research paper.

“In each country, their schedule includes discussions with law professors and students, representatives of different human rights groups, police officers and judges, journalists, religious leaders, cultural figures and a representative from the Ministry of Education in Kosovo where a new curriculum for schools is being developed.”