Qatar Calls Upon Harvard for Help in Establishing Law School

Karen Sloan

The National Law Journal

08-02-2012

Harvard Law School's Institute for Global Law and Policy has formed a partnership with the Qatar Foundation, an economic development and education organization that plans to start a graduate law school in Doha.

In addition to fostering research collaborations and exchanges, Harvard faculty will advise administrators on curriculum, admissions and additional administrative matters as they establish the new school.

"It's an honor to have been asked to help advise the Qatar Foundation as it develops its plans to build a world class law school in Qatar," David Kennedy, a Harvard law professor who directs the institute, said in announcing the partnership. "Our own faculty development initiative to be launched this year will become a strong component in that broader effort and strengthen education in law and policy both in Qatar and the Arab region and beyond."

The institute's leaders hope that Qatar will become a "hub" for legal scholars and research, Kennedy said. One aspect of the partnership will be workshops bringing together scholars of the Middle East, the first of which was slated for early January. Foundation officials hope the workshops will connect scholars of Islamic and Arabic law with their international counterparts.

The Qatar Foundation plans to establish the law school at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Doha. The school will focus on three areas: a doctoral program, a research institute and a faculty-development program. The organization describes itself on its website as "an independent, private, non-profit, chartered organization" that was founded by Amir Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani in 1995, when he became head of state.

"At the heart of this cooperation is Qatar Foundation's vision to establish a center of learning that will help revitalize legal education in the Middle East, and represent Islamic and Arabic legal traditions in the global dialogue on legal and governance issues," said foundation president Mohammad Fathy Saoud.

Harvard aims to "nurture innovative approaches to global policy in the face of a legal and institutional architecture manifestly ill-equipped to address our most urgent global challenges," according to the institute website.

Many U.S. law schools have been forming research partnerships with overseas law schools, in nods to globalization and the increasingly international legal profession. Few have established formal partnerships or collaborations with law schools in the Middle East.