OXFORD, Miss. – A University of Mississippi law professor has accepted an appointment to an advisory group for The Hague.
Joanne Gabrynowicz, director of the university’s National Center for Remote Sensing, Air and Space Law, became a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration Advisory Group of Legal Experts on Optional Rules for Arbitration for Disputes Relating to Outer Space in December. Her one-year term expires at the end of this year.
“The group’s composition is based on the highest internationally acknowledged professional qualifications and global representation,” said Samuel M. Davis, dean of the UM School of Law. “The center, along with the University of Mississippi and the law school, is internationally recognized as one of the premier institutions in the world where the highest expertise in space law resides.”
Gabrynowicz is regularly asked to speak internationally on the subject of space law and is an official observer for the International Astronautical Federation to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. A founding faculty member of the University of North Dakota Space Studies Department, she joined the UM School of Law faculty in 2001. She was elected to the board of directors for the International Institute of Space Law in 2007. Before beginning her academic career in 1987, she was the managing attorney of a law firm in New York City.
The work of the arbitration advisory group is expected to be finalized at a fall 2010 meeting at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands. Findings will eventually be submitted for endorsement to the Administrative Council in which 110 member states are represented.
For more information on space law programs at UM, go to http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/