In addition to its efforts to promote regional studies, the Parker School has undertaken specialized studies of certain types of international activities. The most active of these programs is that on international arbitration, directed by Professor Smit. The School has taken a leading role in the study and promotion of international arbitration. It is publishing a multivolume work, The World Arbitration Reporter (WAR), edited by Professors Smit and Pechota, of which six volumes have appeared to date. WAR aims at publishing, and keeping up-to-date, both national and international laws on arbitration and scholarly commentary on such materials. It is the only work of this scope and ambition in the world. The School has also published, and intends to continue publishing periodically, The Parker School Guide to International Arbitration and Arbitrators, which provides the latest information on the rules of the leading arbitration institutions and on persons who may be considered for appointment as an arbitrator. This unique work, published for the first time in 1989, has become the standard reference work. The Parker School has also published Arbitration and the Courts (1989), a reference book on American and foreign materials on the relationships between courts and arbitration. In 1990, the Parker School began publication of The American Review of International Arbitration, of which Professors Smit and Pechota are the editors in chief and Elizabeth Cooper and Karen Negris Hacker are the managing editors. Assisted by a Board of Student Editors and an Advisory Board of leading scholars and practitioners, ARIA has attracted an array of contributions by leading scholars and practitioners. A seminar on International Commercial Arbitration is offered by Professor Smit, who also devotes substantial time to arbitration in the course on Advanced Civil Procedure. Professor Bermann's course on Transnational Litigation covers all major procedural aspects of private international litigation, chiefly in U.S. courts and in arbitral tribunals.
The Parker School has made a similar arrangement with the University of Rome (La Sapienza) in Italy, under which Columbia Law School graduates designated by the Parker School may be admitted to the doctoral program leading to the award, after one year of study, of the Laurea degree.
As the result of initiatives taken by the Parker School, many German and other foreign law schools grant an LL.M. degree after one year of graduate study.
The Parker School has also made arrangements with a number of prominent foreign law schools, under which Columbia Law School students can study a semester abroad under the guidance of a member of the law faculty of the foreign law school. The foreign law schools involved include the University of Paris I and the University of Rome. Similar arrangements with other prominent law schools abroad are contemplated.
