Creighton International and Comparative Law Journal Symposium 2025

*Location Update

Creighton University 
Mike and Josie Harper Center
*Hixson-Lied Auditorium
602 N 20th St
Omaha, NE 68102

No Cost to Attend

The Creighton International and Comparative Law Journal Symposium 2025, titled “The Challenge to Democracies and International Law,” will address the complex relationship between democratic governance and international law. 

Scholars often debate the role of international law, placing it between two schools of thought. The cosmopolitan school emphasizes rights, participation, and democracy, whereas the sovereigntist school emphasizes state authority and national autonomy. The sovereigntist approach is commonly employed by authoritarian regimes and, increasingly, by populist movements within democratic countries. In today’s environment, where authoritarianism continues to replace democratic governance, the symposium “The Challenge to Democracies and International Law” will explore the role of international law in this context. It will analyze whether judicial systems can hold state actors accountable to both constitutional and international human rights standards, and how transnational legal processes influence the strength of democratic institutions and the stability of the global order.

The symposium will start with opening remarks from Dean Joshua Fershée of Creighton University School of Law, followed by a keynote address from the Honorable Raul Pangalangan, retired judge of the International Criminal Court. A panel, “Can International Law Save Democracies? The Judiciary, International Norms, and Democracy,” will then bring together leading scholars to discuss how international law can support democracies facing internal and external challenges.

Panelists include Professor Brian D. Lepard from the University of Nebraska College of Law, Professor Jena Martin from St. Mary’s University School of Law, Professor Kelley Loper from the University of Denver, and Professor Christopher N. J. Roberts from the University of Minnesota. Father Stefanus Hendrianto, S.J., will moderate the discussion and provide a forum for scholarly debate on the role of international law in protecting democratic institutions.

The program will conclude with remarks from Professor Michael Kelly of Creighton University School of Law, who will reflect on the broader implications of the symposium’s themes for law, policy, and global governance.

Lawyers, Law Students

• Creighton University School of Law
• Creighton University College of Professional and Continuing Education

Tuesday, October 21, 2025

All times listed are in Central Time (CT).

8:30 a.m.
Registration

9:30 a.m.
Welcome and Introduction
Dean Joshua Fershée 
Creighton University School of Law

9:45 a.m.
Keynote Lecture
Honorable Raul Cano Pangalangan
Former Judge of the International Criminal Court

10:45 a.m.
Break

11 a.m.
Panel: Can International Law Save Democracies? The Judiciary, International Norms, and Democracy
Moderated by: Father Stefanus Hendrianto, SJ

Brian D. Lepard
Harold W. Conroy Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Nebraska College of Law 

Jena Martin
Katherine A. Ryan Chair for Global and International Law and Professor of Law, St. Mary’s University School of Law

Kelley Loper
Director of the Ved Nanda Center for International and Comparative Law and Professor of Law, University of Denver Sturm College of Law

Christopher N.J. Roberts
Associate Professor of Law and Affiliated Faculty Member of the Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota Law School

12:20 p.m.
Closing Remarks
Michael J. Kelly
Professor of Kaiman Center for International Criminal Justice & Holocaust Studies, Creighton University School of Law

12:30 p.m.
Adjournment

Keynote Speaker
Honorable Raul Cano Pangalangan

Judge Raul Cano Pangalangan, S.J.D., served as a Judge of the International Criminal Court from 2015 to 2021, elected from the Asian Group of States. Before joining the Court, he was a Dean and Professor of Law at the University of the Philippines and taught at Harvard Law School and The Hague Academy of International Law. A constitutional and international law scholar, Judge Pangalangan was a Philippine Delegate in the drafting of the Rome Statute in 1998 and co-chaired the national campaign for ratification by the Philippines and other Asia-Pacific states. He studied at Harvard, where he received his LL.M. (winning the Laylin Prize in international law) and S.J.D. (winning the Sumner Prize for best dissertation on international peace). He holds the Diplôme of The Hague Academy of International Law.

Panelists:

Brian D. Lepard
Professor Brian D. Lepard, a Harold W. Conroy Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Nebraska College of Law, is a prominent scholar in international law, human rights, comparative law, and tax law. He earned a B.A. from Princeton and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Before teaching, he worked in international human rights at the United Nations Office of the Bahá’í International Community and later practiced international and tax law at Dechert Price & Rhoads.

Professor Lepard has written eight books and numerous articles on international human rights, humanitarian intervention, legal theory, comparative and religious law, ethics, and tax law. His expertise has taken him to speak worldwide, including in Europe, South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

Professor Lepard serves as faculty adviser for the International Human Rights Law program at the University of Nebraska College of Law, sits on several journal editorial boards, and has held leadership roles with the American Society of International Law and the International Law Association. He also provides advice to organizations such as Genocide Watch and the Global Ethics and Religion Forum.

Professor Lepard is fluent in French and proficient in Portuguese. He is admitted to practice law in Nebraska, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and before the U.S. Tax Court. 

Jena Martin
Professor Jena Martin, the Katherine A. Ryan Chair for Global and International Law and Professor of Law at St. Mary’s University School of Law, is a leading scholar in business and human rights, with expertise in how human rights intersect with data privacy, artificial intelligence, and securities regulation. Her research has been published in leading law journals, including the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law and the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, as well as in national outlets such as The Chicago Tribune and The Houston Chronicle. She has presented her work at international forums, including the United Nations, and co-authored or edited several books, among them The Business and Human Rights Landscape (Cambridge University Press) and When the Levees Break (Lexington Books). Before entering academia, Professor Martin served as Senior Counsel in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement and worked as a consultant and advisor to small businesses. She previously held the Robert L. Shuman Professorship of Law and Ethics at West Virginia University. Combining her scholarly research and practical experience, Professor Martin is recognized as a thought leader on how businesses influence and impact human rights. She earned her J.D. from Howard University School of Law and her LL.M. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Kelley Loper
Professor Kelley Loper is an internationally recognized scholar in human rights, refugee law, and comparative equality law. She is a Professor of Law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and the director of the Ved Nanda Center for International and Comparative Law. Additionally, Professor Loper serves on the advisory boards of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law and the Centre for Comparative and Public Law at the University of Hong Kong.

Her scholarship analyzes the implementation of international human rights standards in domestic legal systems, with a focus on Hong Kong, mainland China, and Asia. She has published extensively on refugee protection, the rights to education and legal capacity under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, dignity as a constitutional value, and gender constitutionalism. She has taught and lectured widely on international human rights law, comparative equality law, and refugee law.

In addition to her academic work, Professor Loper has served on the boards of the Hong Kong Dignity Institute, Justice Centre Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Refugee Advice Centre, and Amnesty International (Hong Kong). She has also advised organizations such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UN Women, and Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, and has contributed to UN proceedings on racial discrimination.

Christopher N.J. Roberts
Professor Christopher N.J. Roberts is an Associate Professor of Law and an affiliated faculty member of the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota and its Law School. He integrates law, sociology, and public policy, with a focus on human rights, international law, and legal history. His recent book, The Contentious History of the International Bill of Human Rights (Cambridge University Press), received the 2015 Gordon Hirabayashi Human Rights Book Award from the American Sociological Association. The book demonstrates how opposition to the creation of the International Bill of Human Rights in the 1940s and 1950s was embedded in its framework, leaving “internal contradictions” that continue to limit the implementation of human rights today.

Professor Roberts is working on a second book, which takes an unusual approach by exploring the historical origins of an absence. While every legally enforceable right depends on a legal duty, the book demonstrates that duties have been sidelined in modern rights theory and practice. This project identifies key moments in history when duties were separated from the modern concept of rights and examines the effects of this division.

Professor Roberts earned his J.D. from the University of Southern California and his Ph.D. in Public Policy and Sociology from the University of Michigan, where his dissertation was honored with the university’s Distinguished Dissertation Award. He has also been a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for the Study of Law and Society.

His research interests encompass human rights, citizenship, tort law, international law, legal history, law and society, and the evolution and development of legal concepts.

Moderator: Father Stefanus Hendrianto, SJ
Father Stefanus Hendrianto, S.J., earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in law from the University of Washington School of Law, with a concentration in comparative constitutional law. Additionally, he holds Master of Divinity (MDiv) and Master of Theology (ThM) degrees from Boston College, as well as a Master of Laws (LLM) degree from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Fr. Hendrianto was born and raised in Indonesia and later became a naturalized citizen of the United States. His research focuses on comparative law, constitutional law, legal philosophy, Catholic social teaching, and human rights, among other topics.

In the summer of 2024, Father Hendrianto joined Creighton University as the Waite Chair in Jesuit Education. Prior to this position, he served as a lecturer at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome since 2020. He had also been a visiting scholar at the University of Notre Dame and a visiting professor and lecturer at Santa Clara University.

Father Hendrianto is a member of the United States West Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuit West) and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 2019. Following his ordination, he spent his pastoral year in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Opening Remarks: Dean Joshua Fershée 
Dean Joshua Fershée became the 11th dean of Creighton University School of Law in 2019 after serving in leadership and faculty roles at West Virginia University College of Law and the University of North Dakota School of Law. A graduate of Michigan State University and Tulane Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Tulane Law Review, Dean Fershée practiced at Davis Polk & Wardell and Hogan & Hartson before entering academia. His scholarship focuses on energy law, business entities, and sustainable development, and his work has been published in leading journals and by Oxford University Press. He is the author of Energy Law: A Context and Practice Casebook and co-author of Unincorporated Business Entities.

Closing Remarks: Michael Kelly
Professor Michael J. Kelly directs the Kaiman Center for International Criminal Justice & Holocaust Studies at Creighton University, including its summer course on international criminal law in Germany. A scholar in international, comparative, and Native American law, he has authored eight books and over fifty articles, with his work ranking among the top 3% on Social Science Research Network. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of L’Association International du Droit Pénal in Paris, the Board of Directors of the International Scientific & Professional Advisory Council of the United Nations Criminal Justice Program in Milan, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Natural Resources & Energy Law in Denver, the Board of Advisors for the Siracusa Criminal Justice Institute in Siracusa, Sicily, and co-chairs the ABA's Task Force on Internet Governance. Professor Kelly has been a leading voice on U.S.-Cuba relations, testifying before Congress, working with exiled property claimants, and publishing widely, including books with Oxford University Press. More recently, he has been actively engaged on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, traveling to Ukraine to present white papers on seizing Russian corporate assets, training Ukrainian prosecutors on how to bring environmental crimes cases against Russian commanders, and teaching at Ukrainian law schools in Kyiv, Odessa, and Lviv via zoom. The University of Texas International Law Journal published his team’s white paper in volume 60.

Office of Continuing Education
College of Professional and Continuing Education
Creighton University
402.280.1830
CMedEd@creighton.edu