Lef to right: A.B.M. Asrafuzzaman, Carlos Federico, Aguirre Cárdenas, Bianca Robertson, Prof. Mateo Tausigg-Rubbo and Peiwei “Peter” Wang
Global Pathways for First Cohort of Doctoral Students
UB Law’s newly established doctoral program has hit its stride this past fall with the arrival of the first full cohort of students pursuing the JSD degree.
The inaugural group of JSD students is global in scope. They bring to Bufalo experience in legal practice and academia, and a broad and ambitious roster of research projects aimed at enhancing international relations and examining international human rights.
As the four JSD students—all practicing lawyers—settled in for an intense period of academic work, they shared some of the ambitions that a doctorate in law can make possible.
“This program lets us build out the research side of the student experience,” says Professor Mateo Taussig-Rubbo, who directs the JSD program, “both for these individual students and also in their interaction with our JD students. They’ll be exposing our JDs to other ways of legal thinking they might not otherwise have.”
A.B.M. Asrafuzzaman is an associate professor of law at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and an advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. His research interests include the law of inheritance, women’s rights, sustainable development law, family law, torts, international human rights, intellectual property and constitutional law.
The author of ten articles in highly regarded academic journals, his current thesis project bears the title “Women’s Unequal Inheritance Right Over Property in Bangladesh.”
“Women’s rights to inherit property are complicated in Bangladesh by the strictures of religious law,” says Asrafuzzaman. In his thesis, he intends to put forth proposed legal reforms so that the nation can fulfill its obligations under the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
“I love to be busy,” says Carlos Federico Aguirre Cárdenas, a lawyer from Mexico who comes to the law school with aspirations to transition from legal practice to full-time teaching. He founded a law firm that largely represents foreign companies seeking to do business in Mexico, as well as Mexican companies doing international transactions.
His research centers on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the free trade agreement that replaced NAFTA and took effect in 2020. Specifically, he’s looking at the role of rules of origin—which determine whether products are eligible for duty-free status or reduced duties—in trade governed by the agreement.
Bianca Robertson, of Cape Town, South Africa, has wide experience as an international human rights lawyer. She has worked with the United Nations, academic institutions, nongovernmental organizations and the South African Parliament. Robertson comes to UB Law as a Fulbright Scholar.
Her particular interest is in the rights children, and the advancement of those rights through law reform. Her research project will focus on law reform in South Africa but will compare other countries’ efforts.
“We had an unequal society before we had democracy in South Africa,” Robertson says. “With democracy we developed a comprehensive and progressive Constitution. It provides a specific section on the rights of children, and from that South Africa developed national laws to ensure those rights. It is essential to monitor and evaluate the body of law to assess how far we have come as a country. I aim to assess how South Africa has progressed in law reform on children’s rights to make them more practical and sustainable.”
Peiwei “Peter” Wang is a partner in a southeast China law firm, where for two decades he has practiced in the area of financial transactions and international trade. His clients span the globe, from France to South Africa, Turkey to Australia to Hong Kong.
Wang is interested in the relationship between government social controls, such as censorship, and international trade. Looking at China and other countries, he’s investigating whether crackdowns on free speech hinder the expansion of a country’s international trade, or promote trade growth. “Economic development and confinement of freedom of expression, can these two goals be attained?” he asks.