WVU College of Law considers international codes of conduct, from ethics to U.N.

MORGANTOWN -- How have notions of human rights, state sovereignty, and regional economic cooperation evolved in the last half century?

And, how do lawyers fulfill their ethical mandate in promoting newly evolved international norms?

West Virginia University 's College of Law will consider those questions in a series of global-minded events March 23-24 at the school.

Mark W. Janis, a University of Connecticut law professor and renowned scholar on international law, will deliver the annual Charles L. Ihlenfeld Lecture on Public Policy and Ethics, "Americans and the Quest for an Ethical International Law" at 3:30 p.m. Thursday in the Lugar Courtroom.

The lectureship is made possible through an endowment created by family of the late Ihlenfeld, a 1933 WVU law graduate, magistrate, and former mayor of Wheeling.

Past Ihlenfeld lecturers include former Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox and Nina Totenberg, a reporter and commentator with National Public Radio.

On Friday, Janis will also participate in the International Law Symposium, "The Quiet European Revolution Since 1950" at 11 a.m. in Room 158 of the Law Center.

Moderated by James Friedberg, the Hale J. and Roscoe P. Posten Professor of Law at the College of Law, the panel includes Esa Paasivirta, a legal adviser to The Delegation of the European Commission to the United Nations; and Peter Schaeffer, who chairs WVU's Resource Management division.

The College of Law will continue to employ its legal magnifying glass on society next week when the West Virginia Law Review hosts as its annual symposium, "Brave New World - Developing the Legal Frontier in Light of Forensic and Biometric Advances" on March 27 and 28. Each day's events begin at 9:00 a.m. in the WVU Law Center Lugar Courtroom.

Among the co-sponsors of day one's focus upon forensics and biometrics are the WVU Forensic Science Initiative and the WVU Biometrics Knowledge Center.

Forums on terrorism and privacy are part of the bill, which also includes a lecture on March 27 by Judge William Webster, the former CIA and FBI director, as part of WVU's Festival of Ideas series; and the annual Edward G. Donley Memorial Lecture Series presented on March 28 by Professor Steven Goldberg of Georgetown University Law Center.