January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, but the School of Law's Wilbanks Child Endangerment and Sexual Exploitation Clinic works year-round to fight for survivors through scholarship, training and service on area task forces.
To help with the reimagination of local, national and international structures used to respond to global public health emergencies such as the emergence and spread of COVID-19, the School of Law will host a daylong, virtual conference titled "The Future of Global Health Governance" starting at 10 a.m. on January 25. Organized by the Dean Rusk International Law Center and the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, the conference will address three crucial questions: whether and how the ailing global public health infrastructure might be reinvigorated; how the pandemic has threatened and exposed limitations of the social safety net in the United States and other economies around the world; and the phenomenon of vaccine refusal and what national and international legal institutions might do to curb it.
The School of Law regrets to announce former employee Diane Walton Rounds passed away December 28, 2019. She served as an administrative assistant in the school's law placement/career services office from 1979 through 1993. She will be missed by law school faculty, staff and former students.
Two University of Georgia professors have been named Regents' Professors, an honor bestowed by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia for faculty whose scholarship or creative activity is recognized both nationally and internationally as innovative and pace-setting. The School of Law's Diane Marie Amann was selected. Her scholarship focuses on the ways that national, regional and international legal regimes interact as they endeavor to combat atrocity and cross-border crime. Her current research will produce the first-ever book, under contract with Oxford University Press, on the roles of women professionals at the 1945-46 war crimes trial before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.
Former Dean Edward D. "Ned" Spurgeon passed away on January 2 at the age of 81, after battling cancer for several years. He served as dean of our law school from 1993 to 1998 and was a member of our faculty for another five years specializing in law, public policy and aging; taxation of gifts, estates and trusts; and estate planning. After leaving Georgia, his connection to the law school remained constant through his support of the Spurgeon Fellowship, which provides funding for law students working in summer public interest positions. Dean Spurgeon was a leader, scholar, teacher and mentor to many. He is survived by his wife, Carol; his sons, Michael and Stephen; his daughters-in-law, Elizabeth and Janie; his sister Joan Brennan and four grandchildren.