Columbus School of Law

  2012 Course Information

Institutes and Programs > Summer Law Abroad  > Cracow Program

Schedule of Classes
Course Descriptions
Faculty Information
Course Materials and Library Facilities
Books

Courses for Summer 2012

In addition to staple courses examining the laws of the European Union and those that regulate international trade, new courses are developed each year especially for the Summer Law Program in Poland. The law school’s goal is to offer students unique courses covering comparative aspects of substantive areas of law which are rarely available in the United States and that are of fundamental importance to students of countries in transition, like Poland.

Courses in previous years have focused on international aspects of tax and economic regulation, human rights, arbitration, constitutional law and legal ethics and the legal profession. In summer 2012, the program will offer courses on international economic regulation, international business transactions, as well as international human rights.

All classes in the Summer Law Program will be conducted in English.  American students must enroll for at least five, and no more than seven, semester hours of credit. Methods of evaluation of students’ performance may vary; most of the courses have written exams, though some courses may offer take-home exams or written papers.

Schedule of Classes (tentative)

Back to top ↑

 Six-week course
(3 credit hours)

Comparative and International Trade 
Professor Rett Ludwikowski

 Three-week courses
(2 credit hours)

Law of the European Union
Professor Iza Krasnicka/Professor Marta Skrodzka

International Economic Regulation
Professor George Garvey

International Business Transactions
Professor Ewa Baginska

International Human Rights
Profesor Shelby Quast

Course Descriptions

Comparative and International Trade (3 credit hours)
Americans: Only the first 20 are guaranteed registration in this course.
This course concentrates on the public regulation of international trade and policy of the world’s major trading partners. It examines problems of import and export controls, response to unfair practices in international trade, dumping and subsidies, antidumping and countervailing duties, as well as international monetary policy and international investment. Students are introduced to the basic regulatory scheme of the WTO/GATT System, to the policies of Free Trade Areas and Customs Unions and to trade with the European Union and with non-market economies. The emphasis is on U.S. regulation of international trade, the distribution of national powers to deal with transnational problems, presidential powers to regulate international economic affairs, escape clauses and safeguards under GATT and U.S. law and retaliation against unfair trade practices. The course grade is based on a final written examination.

International Business Transactions (2 credit hours) 
This course concentrates on private business transactions that cross national boundaries. It is designed to provide students with the tools they need to understand the various legal doctrines applicable to international commercial contracts. After an examination of some basic international and comparative law principles, the course focuses primarily on international sales of goods, distributor/agency agreements and international payments and security. In addition, it will examine relevant issues of private international law and the resolution of international disputes. This is an exam course. 

International Economic  Regulation (2 credit hours) -This course focuses on international and foreign national economic laws and policies that foster, or impair, transnational economic commerce. It explores the WTO and GATT, various transnational competition laws, IMF, the World Bank, and conflicting policies of developing nations designed to stimulate trade and investment while promoting internal growth and domestic control.

International Human Rights (2 credit hours)
This course explores the development of international human rights standards and the role of international organizations in establishing and applying those rights. The materials focus on the development of the international law of human rights, particular areas of current attention, the legal basis for the authority of international bodies to act, the resolution of disputes between nations, and the monitoring and enforcement mechanisms applicable to human rights. Attention will also be given to the relationship between international human rights law and domestic legal remedies as well as to the interpretation and application of treaties in the legal systems of the states that are parties to them.

Law of the European Union (2 credit hours)  
This course provides an overview of the political and legal framework of the European Union institutions, trade relations and legal and business implications of the European process of integration. The course focuses on the creation of the European Union, the structures and processes for the development of the Union’s law, constitutional issues or the role of the European Court of Justice. Moreover, it introduces students to differences within the corporate legal system of European Member States. It is designed to present students the harmonization program within the corporate law matters and the possibilities of creation of different business organizations under the Law of the European Union. Finally, the course is helpful to understand the competition among the legal forms of different Member States. The course grade is based on participation in class and a final examination.

Back to top ↑

Faculty Information

PROFESSOR EWA BAGINSKA holds a postdoctoral degree in law and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and International Commercial Law of the Faculty of Law and Administration at the Nicholas Copernicus University in Torun, Poland. She teaches Contracts, Torts, Consumer and Competition Law, and Introduction to American Private Law. In 1998-1999, Professor Baginska was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, and in 2000-2001, she was granted a NATO Postdoctoral Science Fellowship also at CUA Law. She is a fellow of the European Tort and Insurance Center in Vienna, Austria. Professor Baginska has published over 40 articles, reports and book chapters in the area of civil law and comparative law. Professor Baginska has authored two books: Products Liability in U.S. Law (2000) and Tort liability of public authorities (2006).

PROFESSOR MICHAL CHOROSNICKI is a professor at the Jagiellonian University Law School. Professor dr. hab. Chorosnicki has served as the Polish Administrator of the Summer Law Program in Cracow since the program’s inception in 1992. He is a specialist in international relations who has significant experience in the American legal process. Dr. Chorosnicki is a former visiting professor at Yale University, Southern Connecticut State University and at the Columbus School of Law (1995 and 1999). He participated in the Advanced Study Program at the Royal Institute of Foreign Affairs in London, at the American Studies Program in Salzburg, Austria, as a scholar at Kiev University in the Ukraine and was an international visitor in the USIA program. His latest book is entitled NAFTA: The Decade of Change.

PROFESSOR GEORGE E. GARVEY received his B.A. from the University of Illinois at Chicago and graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School. Following law school he clerked for Chief Judge John Reynolds of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin and then practiced antitrust law for several years at a law firm in Milwaukee. Professor Garvey joined the faculty of the Catholic University Law School in 1978. He served as associate dean for academic affairs from 1989 until 1997. Garvey teaches constitutional law, antitrust, property, regulated industries and Catholic social teaching and law. His publications include Economic Law and Economic Growth: Antitrust, Regulations, and the American Growth System and numerous book chapters and articles related to competition law and policy, domestic and international economic regulation, and the relationship between law and Catholic Social Teaching.

In 1980, Professor Garvey took leave from the university to serve as counsel to the Subcommittee on Monopolies and Commercial Law of the United States House of Representatives' Committee on the Judiciary. He subsequently served as a special consultant to the Judiciary Committee on antitrust treble damages and has testified at numerous congressional hearings on various pending bills related to antitrust law and policy. Garvey has been the recipient of two Fulbright grants; the first to conduct research as a senior scholar at the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg, Germany, and the second as a senior lecturer at the Jagiellonian University of Krakow, Poland.

PROFESSOR IZABELLA KRASNICKA holds a doctoral degree in law and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public International Law of the Faculty of Law and at the University in Bialystok, Poland. She teaches Public International Law, Law of the European Union and Introduction to American Legal System. In 1999, Professor Krasnicka was a Boeing Scholar at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law and, in 2005, she was granted a Kosciuszko Foundation Research Grant also at CUA Law. She is a member of the Legal Clinics Foundation's Board and Coordinator of the European Union exchange programs.

PROFESSOR RETT LUDWIKOWSKI is the founding director of the Summer Law Program in Cracow, created in 1992. Professor Ludwikowski holds doctorate degrees in law and legal and political theory. Until 1982 he taught law and politics and held the chair of Modern Legal and Political Movements and Ideas and was the chairman of the Division of Law and Business at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland.  After coming to the United States in 1982, Dr. Ludwikowski continued his research work, while holding several visiting scholar and visiting fellow positions, including the USICA Program, U.S. State Department (1981), The Heritage Foundation (1981), Elizabethtown College, PA (1982-1983), and the Hoover Institute, Stanford University (1983). He was also a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship (1997) and the residential Fellowship of Max Planck Institute in Hamburg, Germany (1989). He came to the Catholic University of America in 1984 and has been a professor of law at the Columbus School of Law since 1985. Dr. Ludwikowski has served as the director of the Comparative and International Law Institute since the institute's inception in 1985.  From 2001 to 2003, he was the managing editor of Comparative Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, a multi-volume publication of Oceana Publications, Inc.

Professor Ludwikowski has authored 20 books, including his most recently published books, International Trade. Warsaw: C.H. Beck, 2006 and Mafia --Part II,  Warsaw, KUBA, 2006.

PROFESSOR SHELBY QUAST is a visiting Professor at the Catholic University Columbus School of Law where she teaches Comparative Law, Public International Law, International Business Transactions, and International Development:  creating Law and Policy. She previously taught Conflict and Development at the American University, School for International Service. Professor Quast has over 28 years experience working internationally in a broad range of activities including: human rights; international commercial transactions; gender justice; post conflict legal reform; drafting and analyzing laws; and, negotiating and interpreting treaties/agreements. Professor Quast is a founder of the International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC), where she currently sits on the Board of Directors and Partners for Gender Justice, where she serves as Director.  Included among her publications are numerous reports and toolkits for the United Nations.  She was recipient of a Fulbright award in 2006.

PROFESSOR MARTA JANINA SKRODZKA holds a doctoral degree in law and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Corporate Law of the Faculty of Law at the University in Bialystok, Poland. She teaches Polish Corporate Law, EU & US Corporate Law and ADR methods and serves as main Coordinator of the legal clinic at the Bialystok Law School. Professor Skrodzka is the recipient of the Kosciuszko Foundation and PILI scholarship and spent fall semester 2006 at Columbia University School of Law, New York USA as a visiting scholar working on the research about the new ways of the development of Clinical Legal Education in Poland from American perspective. She is also a member of the Polish Mediation Center, author and co-author of 2 textbooks on Polish Corporate Law and more than 40 articles on Polish Corporate matters, Clinical Legal Education and Mediation.

Course Materials and Library Facilities

All necessary course materials are in English and will be obtained or prepared by the Columbus School of Law and made available at cost to participating American and Canadian students upon arrival in Cracow. Polish students will have access to all texts and materials used in the program. Students will also have access to the outstanding resources of the Jagiellonian University library as well as to the specialized collection of the library of the Faculty of Law. Approximately 20 percent of the Jagiellonian’s collection of 2.8 million books and periodicals are in English. The library is open during weekday hours and a limited collection of materials suggested by the faculty will be held on reserve at a place convenient to all students.

There is limited weekday access to computer facilities, however students may bring properly insured laptop computers for personal word processing needs. Although e-mail access will be provided at Jagiellonian University, many students have found it most convenient to send and receive e-mail from one of the many Internet cafes that are open in Cracow. Memberships at these Internet cafes are inexpensive and hours of operation are significantly longer than the university’s hours.

Books A complete list of required texts will be published early Spring semester. Students may opt to have the program buy the books in the US and ship them via freight ship to Poland or purchase their own new or cheaper used copies. 
 

Back to top ↑