Moldova presentation at the USF College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Board Meeting April 2022

I was pleased to be the Faculty Spotlight at the USF College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Board meeting on April 1 - which Dean Eric Eisenberg hosted on the St. Peterburg campus.

My presentation had 3 parts -- the first 2 highlighted work in Moldova: 

 

 

Creating a Global Classroom: Developing Collaborative International Research Projects in Undergraduate Courses

 

I discussed the "global classroom" that we created this semester -- the partnership between USF St Petersburg and ULIM.  I explained that we have 7 research groups, (each with 3 USF and 2 ULIM students) each of which is collaborating on a research project comparing and contrasting decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the US Supreme Court on similar legal question. Students presented at the Florida Political Science Association annual meeting last weekend.  And they will be participating in the USF Undergraduate Research Symposium, the ULIM Student Symposium, as well as a special roundtable discussion at the America House of the US Embassy in Chisinau.  We are also working on a submission for the ULIM law review.

I invited one of the students in my Constitutional Law class - Taylor Herman - to join me to discuss her work with Moldovan colleagues as a part of the "global classroom" project.  (Ms. Herman was one of the presenters at the Florida Political Science Association Annual meeting last week.) 

 

 

Taylor Herman speaks about her work with the Moldovan students at ULIM

For Part 2 of the presentation:

 

The Impact of the European Court of Human Rights on Justice Sector Reform in the Republic of Moldova

I also discussed the results of my study conducted while a Fulbright Scholar in Moldova -- focused on the Impact of the European Court of Human Rights on Justice Sector Reform in the Republic of Moldova.  For this study I reviewed the judgments of the European Court  of  Human Rights against the Republic of Moldova and the corresponding reports of the Committee of Ministers (responsible for supervising the execution of the judgments) from 1997 (after Moldova ratified the European Convention on Human Rights) through 2014. In addition, I interviewed more than 25 lawyers, judges, and human rights advocates, including the President of the Supreme Court of Justice (and former judge on the ECtHR), the Vice Minister of Justice, and the Government Agent.  

After analyzing the effectiveness of the Court in terms of compliance with the judgments in specific cases (individual measures), I assessed the broader impact of these decisions (general measures) on legal reforms and public policy in the Republic of Moldova. 

I evaluated the effectiveness of the decisions of the ECtHR in the context of the implementation of Moldova’s Justice Sector Reform Strategy (2011-2015), the Council of Europe’s Action Plan to Support Democratic Reforms in the Republic of Moldova (2013-2016), and Moldova’s National Human Rights Action Plan (2011-2014). 

My study offered insights into the constraints faced by the ECtHR in implementing its decisions and the impact of the ECtHR on national legal systems:  law as an instrument of transforming reality.

 Also --- I have been having weekly meetings with Associate Dean Allison Cleveland-Roberts for more than a year -- and we finally met in person at this CAS Advisory Board meeting!!