Events
Solutions-Oriented Leadership
Unique among law schools, most faculty at the St. Mary’s University School of Law have taught a course on international law, either through our long-standing, ABA-accredited study-abroad program, St. Mary’s Institute on World Legal Problems in Innsbruck, Austria, or as part of our previous St. Mary’s Institute on Chinese Law and Business at Beihang University in Beijing, or as part of a routine semester.
Our faculty work across the full breadth of the field — public international law, private international law and international transactions — and they work on both the theory and practice. Our scholars publish in the leading journals and presses in the world, and their work is relied on by the United Nations, governments, courts, NGOs and businesses. Our faculty have advised militaries and ministries, represented detained migrants, run corporate compliance programs across borders, and litigated in federal court.
Whether through our J.D. and LL.M. degree programs, our clinics or our long-standing international programs, students at St. Mary’s Law learn international law from people who have both written the scholarship and done the work.
Study International Law at St. Mary’s
Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.) Program
St. Mary’s Law J.D. students have access to a wide range of classes focused on international law, taught by our leading experts and practitioners. Our course catalog includes:
- Arbitration
- Business and Human Rights
- Conflicts of Law
- Global and National Security Law
- Human Trafficking
- International Bankruptcy Law
- International Business Transactions: Investment and Finance
- International Business Transactions: Sales and Trade
- International Child Abduction based on the Hague Convention
- International Commercial Arbitration
- International Criminal Justice
- International Human Rights Law
- International Juvenile Law
- International Refugee Law
- Law and International Terrorism
- Laws of Armed Conflict
- Public International Law
- United Nations and International Law
View More Courses
Master of Laws (LL.M.) Program
For lawyers who want to specialize, St. Mary’s Law offers an LL.M. in International and Comparative Law and an LL.M. in International Criminal Law, alongside LL.M. degrees in American Legal Studies and General Law. Each requires 24 credit hours and can be completed full time in a single academic year — two semesters, roughly nine months — with part-time routes available for U.S. citizens.
Internationally trained lawyers join J.D. students in the classroom, which means our students learn comparative law by arguing alongside people who trained in other systems.
International Program Faculty
-
Jeffrey Addicott, J.D., LL.M.
Jeffrey Addicott, J.D., LL.M., Professor of Law, Director of the Warrior Defense Project, is a retired Lieutenant Colonel who spent 20 years in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, including as senior legal adviser to U.S. Army Special Forces.
Addicott writes on the law of armed conflict, national security and terrorism law. He pioneered law of war and human rights training for the militaries of emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and Latin America, and his….
-
Mason Clark, J.D.
Mason Clark, J.D., Assistant Professor of Law, Englehardt Research Fellow, writes on privacy and cybersecurity — fields now governed as much by cross-border regulation as by domestic law.
Before entering academia, he served as the global deputy privacy officer for an international life sciences corporation, acted as data breach counsel for multinational companies, and advised on privacy compliance across jurisdictions at Baker McKenzie. His scholarship addresses consumer privacy, youth privacy and the….
-
Robert Hu, J.D., LL.M., Ph.D.
Robert “Bob” Hu, J.D., LL.M., Ph.D., Professor of Law and Director of the Institute on Chinese Law and Business, is one of the leading American authorities on Chinese intellectual property law. His research guides pm Chinese patent, trademark and copyright law are standard references for practitioners and scholars.
Hu’s recent work compares American and Chinese approaches to intellectual property remedies. He teaches Conflict of Laws — the core of private international law — alongside international intellectual property and….
-
Ramona Lampley, J.D.
Ramona L. Lampley, J.D., Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development and the Ernest Clemens Professor in Corporate and Securities Law.
Lampley’s scholarship focuses on United States policy and domestic liability for corporate reliance on human trafficking, forced labor or child forced labor in the international supply chain. She has been published in The Pepperdine Law Review, American University Law Review, Washington Law Review, BYU Law Review, and….
-
Chenglin Liu, J.S.D., LL.M.
Chenglin “Gary” Liu, J.S.D., LL.M., Professor of Law and a Katherine A. Ryan Chair for Global, Comparative and International Law, works at the intersection of comparative law, public health and global regulation.
His research examines how food and drug safety is governed when supply chains cross borders, how international institutions perform in a pandemic, and how Chinese legal traditions shape contemporary Chinese law. His book….
-
Jena Martin, J.D., LL.M.
Jena Martin, J.D., LL.M., Professor of Law and a Katherine A. Ryan Chair for Global, Comparative and International Law. A former senior counsel in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement, Martin is a leading voice in business and human rights.
Her work asks how corporate accountability can be made real — through securities regulation, disclosure, liability frameworks and beyond — and increasingly addresses the human rights implications of data privacy….
-
Bill Piatt, J.D.
Bill Piatt, J.D., Professor of Law, has written 10 books and dozens of articles on human rights, with a particular focus on the rights of Indigenous peoples, language rights, immigration and human trafficking.
His scholarship was the first to address the legal position of non-federally recognized Indians, and his recent work examines the multi-generational harms of the trafficking and enslavement of Native women and children. He has taught in Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Spain as well as at the St. Mary’s Institute on World Legal Problems in….
-
Erica Schommer, J.D.
Erica Schommer, J.D., Clinical Professor of Law and the South Texas Professor of Law, teaches in the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, where students represent clients in removal proceedings and asylum claims.
She began her career on the U.S.-Mexico border with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, leading its anti-trafficking team and directing the legal orientation program at the Willacy Detention Center. She has worked on human rights issues in Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica….
-
Amanda Stephens, J.D., Ph.D.
Amanda Stephens, J.D., Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, researches the domestic life of international human rights treaties: what actually happens once a state ratifies.
A former Fulbright-Nehru research fellow in India, her recent work traces how Indian courts have applied the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and compares the pathways by which the Women’s Treaty has — and has not — produced gender equality reform in Canada and India.
-
Aaron Tyler, Ph.D.
Aaron Tyler, Ph.D., Professor of International Relations, College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. As a field expert in conflict transformation and professor of International Relations and Global Affairs at St. Mary’s University, Tyler collaborates with partners around the world to train and consult with organizations and community leaders experiencing debilitating conflict.
His research focuses on breaking cycles of group conflict and the sustainable work of collaborative engagement….
-
Tara Van Ho, J.D., Ph.D.
Tara Van Ho, J.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Law, is an internationally recognized expert in public international law, business and human rights and international investment law.
Her research asks how the law facilitates abuse in these contexts and what reforms would prevent business involvement in human rights and humanitarian law violations. Her work has been relied upon by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, U.N. Working Group on Business and Human Rights, the U.N. Special….
Representing Clients: Immigration and Human Rights Clinic
International human rights law is not only argued in Geneva. In the School of Law’s Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, housed in the Center for Legal and Social Justice, student attorneys appear as counsel for clients who could not otherwise find representation — people facing removal, seeking asylum or surviving trafficking and violence. Students work under the supervision of Clinical Professor Erica Schommer, who spent years on the U.S.-Mexico border before joining the faculty. San Antonio’s location near the border and multiple detention centers provides students with real-world opportunities to practice immigration and human rights law.
Study Abroad
Five Weeks in the Alps: St. Mary’s Institute on World Legal Problems
Summer 2026 marked the 40th year of the St. Mary’s Institute on World Legal Problems in Innsbruck, Austria, run with our European partner, the University of Innsbruck. Since 1986, students from more than 130 American law schools and from European and Asian law schools have studied there, in English, making it one of the longest continuously operated summer law programs offered by any American law school.
The Institute has also hosted a number of U.S. Supreme Court justices. Students visit government offices and the seat of the state government, hear guest lectures from European professors and learn from visiting jurists. Scholarships are available for St. Mary’s Law students.
Cultural Spring Break in Mexico
For current students, St. Mary’s Law also offers a Legal and Cultural Spring Break in Mexico alongside our partner universities in Mexico.
Advocacy and Community: Student Opportunities
Our revived International Law Students Association chapter gives students a home for international law outside the classroom, including speaker events, career conversations and volunteer opportunities. Our nationally recognized Advocacy Program is the route into the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition and the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot teams.
- Jessup is the world’s largest moot, with teams from around 700 law schools in 100 countries, simulating a dispute before the International Court of Justice. Students draft memorials for both parties and argue both sides, which is the closest thing to appearing before the International Court of Justice that a law student can do.
- The Vis Moot is the world’s leading student competition focused on international commercial arbitration and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. Selected students write legal memoranda for both claimant and respondent sides, followed by global oral arguments, developing and enhancing skills necessary for a successful commercial arbitration practice.
-
Interested in a Law Degree Program? Contact Us.
LL.M. Contact
For LL.M. inquiries, contact A.J. Bellido de Luna, J.D., Associate Dean of Advocacy and International Partnerships and the Hardy Professor of Practice of Law.
A.J. Bellido de Luna, J.D.
210-436-3779
abellidodeluna@stmarytx.eduJ.D. Contact
Prospective J.D. students can request information or arrange a campus tour by calling or emailing us.
Law Admissions
210-436-3523
lawadmissions@stmarytx.edu