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Research Centers and Programs

  1. Faculty and Scholarship
  2. Research Centers and Programs

Columbia Law School’s research centers and programs reflect the breadth of our faculty’s expertise and the exceptional quality of their scholarship. Through their rigorous research, faculty experts explore foundational, emerging, and interdisciplinary areas of the law. In addition to convening academics, policymakers, judges, and business leaders from around the globe, centers and programs offer students valuable opportunities to collaborate with experienced scholars and researchers.

Find a Center or Program

Human Rights Institute

The Human Rights Institute draws on the Law School’s deep human rights tradition to support and influence human rights practice in the United States and around the world. The institute builds bridges between scholarship and practice in four key areas—counterterrorism and armed conflict, human rights in the U.S., the Inter-American Human Rights System, and the global economy—employing tools such as field work, advocacy, fact-finding reports, and symposia.

Areas of Study

Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership

The Millstein Center operates at the forefront of new thinking about how corporations are governed. The center engages with business leaders and board directors to create meaningful dialogue about the challenges companies face, and to be a focal point for the most innovative research into the policy solutions required to tackle those challenges. Its mission is twofold: to help corporate leaders successfully navigate challenges facing their companies and to bridge the gap between academics and practitioners by developing practical solutions to corporate ownership issues. 

 

Areas of Study

Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts

The Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts contributes to a broader understanding of the legal aspects of creative works of authorship, including their dissemination and use. It also helps students navigate the ever-changing legal dimensions of intellectual property in the digital age through courses, interdisciplinary seminars, and events on topics such as intellectual property, copyright, trademarks, the regulation of electronic media, and problems arising from new communications technologies, plus an externship on law and the arts.

 

Areas of Study

Law and Philosophy Program

The Law and Philosophy Program at Columbia Law School cultivates the exploration of philosophical issues surrounding legal institutions. This includes general jurisprudence (on the nature of law) and special jurisprudence (on particular areas of law), as well as the many ways in which legal institutions implicate subdisciplines of philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, and philosophy of mind and language. Programming includes a Law and Philosophy Workshop series during the academic year, an annual legal theory conference, and a cross-institutional, collaborative community of affiliated scholars.

Areas of Study

National Security Law Program

The National Security Law Program draws on the extensive government experience of Columbia Law School’s faculty to expose students to the real-world challenges facing government officials in the national security field. It supports efforts by faculty members and students to produce policy-relevant scholarship on critical issues, enriching our understanding of both the law and the role of lawyers inside government as well as global issues. The program also hosts events that engage leading government practitioners and legal scholars on contemporary national security issues.

 

Areas of Study

Program in the Law and Economics of Capital Markets

The Program in the Law and Economics of Capital Markets connects the disparate work of lawyers and economists in the field of capital markets regulation by fostering interdisciplinary scholarship. The program has four areas of focus: a capital markets course, a comprehensive study on policymaking and academic research in markets, workshops for government officials and industry experts, and two published books.

 

Areas of Study

Project on Private Law

The Project on Private Law is a research program focused on the study and revitalization of private law—areas of law characterized by their horizontal, inter-personal structure. Private law in this understanding covers not just the traditional fields of common law obligations such as contracts, torts, and property, but also more specialized domains that embody the same horizontal structure in their working, such as intellectual property law, anti-discrimination law, and civil rights law, among others. The project aims to advance both faculty scholarship and student interest in different areas of private law by convening workshops, symposia, and seminars in the field. 

Areas of Study

Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy

The Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy—a joint venture of Columbia Law School and Columbia Business School—fosters dialogue and debate at the intersection of business, law, and public policy. Columbia faculty involved with the center conduct rigorous curricular and research initiatives in order to produce real-world solutions to complex interdisciplinary challenges. The center’s offerings also include a dual J.D./MBA degree, an executive education program, a Blue Sky Workshop that facilitates knowledge sharing, public lectures, conferences, and forums.

 

Areas of Study

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law develops legal techniques to fight climate change, trains students and lawyers in their use, and provides the public with up-to-date resources on key topics in climate law and regulation. The center works closely with scientists at Columbia University’s Earth Institute as well as governmental, nongovernmental, and academic organizations around the world.

 

Areas of Study

Studio for Law and Culture

The Studio for Law and Culture at Columbia University (SLC) is an intellectual home for the study, research, and scholarship on the intersection of law and culture. In addition to hosting fellowships, events, and workshops, SLC supports projects that explore dual interpretations of the law—as both a strict institutional doctrine and as a regime for ordering social life, constructing cultural meaning, and shaping group and individual identities. 

 

Areas of Study