130 Years of Foreign & International Law Instruction in the Yale Law School Bulletin
By Steven Mitchell, Lucie Olejnikova, Evelyn Ma, and John Nann
The Foreign and International Law Department of the Lillian Goldman Law Library (LGLL) has installed a new exhibit in the department’s reading area. Entitled ‘130 Years of Foreign & International Law Instruction in the Yale Law School Bulletin’, the exhibit presents a view of the classroom presence of foreign and international law at Yale Law School through the lens of the course listings published in the annual Bulletin and its predecessors, editions of which, from 1869-2000, were recently digitized by the Lillian Goldman Law Library Digital Collection Department.
At the start of each school year, Yale Law School has published a catalogue (first titled the Bulletin in 1904) that provides students with details about the school for the upcoming year, such as courses offered, faculty members, descriptions of the various academic programs, admissions and assessment policies, and early on, even full rosters of students.
From the earliest extant edition of this catalogue in 1869, it is evident that both foreign and international law played an important and prominent role in legal education at Yale. In addition to education in the Anglo-American system, the curriculum included courses on Civil Law and Roman Law, the ancient legal tradition inherited by the European continent, and the basis for much of international law.
As America’s role in the world changed, courses in foreign and international law came and went, examining the various legal systems and challenges that the nation was encountering in the emerging global economy: law in Africa, Asia, and Latin America; commercial law and human rights, to name a few. In total, over this period of 130 years, Yale Law School offered more than 1550 courses in foreign and international law.
The main feature of the exhibit is a timeline that graphs the number of courses offered each year, as well as five- and ten-year totals. It documents important events in foreign and international law instruction at Yale: general trends, significant ‘firsts’, and notable instructors. In addition, a sample of texts assigned during this period are displayed.
- Herbert W. Briggs, The Law of Nations: Cases, Documents, and Notes (1938)
- Lawrence B. Evans, Leading Cases in International Law (1917)
- James Hadley, Introduction to Roman Law: In Twelve Academical Lectures (1902)
- Ernest G. Lorenzen, Cases on the Conflict of Laws: Selected from Decisions of English and American Courts (1924)
- Myres S. McDougal & W. Michael Reisman, International Law Essays: A Supplement to International Law in Contemporary Perspective (1981)
- Francis Bowes Sayre, A Selection of Cases on the Law of Admiralty (1929)
- Rudolf Sohm, The Institutes of Roman Law (1892)
- Henry J. Steiner, Transnational Legal Problems: Materials and Text (1968)
- Clifford Stevens Walton, The Civil Law in Spain and Spanish-America (2003)
- Theodore D. Woolsey, Introduction to the Study of International Law: Designed as an Aid in Teaching and in Historical Studies (1897)
The timeline, of course, reflects only a small selection of what research into the Bulletin unearthed for the exhibit. There are many other narratives yet to be presented, some of which we hope will find their way into future exhibits drawing on this research.
The exhibit was conceived, researched, and curated by Steven A Mitchell, Lucie Olejnikova, Evelyn Ma, and John Nann, with many thanks to Elba Heddesheimer and Michael Paz for their substantial research assistance.
