Recent J .S.D. Alumni

Ruth Beltzer Dagan
Israel

Ms. Beltzer Dagan's J.S.D. research focuses on market-based instruments for pollution control and particularly, on emissions trading systems and elements of their practical design. She is an attorney with ten years of practical experience in corporate practice and commercial litigation in Israel and in New York. She first became interested in environmental law while working on a major environmental litigation in Israel and decided to pursue a graduate degree in the field in the United States. After completing an M.S. degree in Environmental Management at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, she joined the LL.M. program at the Law School, concentrating her studies in environmental law and policy. Within the program, she has researched such topics as environmental risk management of financial institutions and economic instruments for the control of pollution from transportation. She then joined the Law School's J.S.D. program.

The focus of Ms. Beltzer Dagan's dissertation is the design and practical implementation of an emissions trading system for air pollution control in Israel. In addition to theories of trading systems design, her research draws upon domestic cases in which practical experience was gained from implementation of trading mechanisms. The goal of the dissertation is to determine, based upon global experience in emissions trading, the feasibility of emissions trading in Israel. She currently resides in Israel. She is an adjunct lecturer at Tel-Aviv University School of Law and teaches a course on Business Aspects of Environmental Law.

Noa Ben-Asher
Israel

Ms. Ben-Asher is a recent graduate of the J.S.D. program at NYU School of Law (2005). She holds an LL.M. degree from NYU School of Law (2000), where she was named a Dean's Merit Fellow, and an LL.B. degree from Bar-Ilan University, Israel (1998).

Her J.S.D. dissertation, entitled Paradoxes of Rights and Science: the Regulation of Sex and Gender in Early Childhood, is a study of forms of regulation of sex, gender and sexuality of young children in the U.S. Ms. Ben-Asher's current research interests include law and science, law and technology, legal queer theory and family law.

Among her recent publication are:

"The Necessity of Sex Change: A Struggle for Intersex and Transsex Liberties," Harvard J.L & Gender (January 2005)

"Paradoxes of Health and Equality: When a Boy Becomes a Girl," 16 Yale J.L & Feminism 275 (2004)

Márcia Nina Bernardes
Brazil

Ms. Bernardes is a J.S.D. candidate whose academic interests include international law of human rights, democratic theory and issues on democratization. Her doctoral dissertation explores the implications of the consolidation of transnational public spheres to relationship between civil society and the Brazilian state. As an illustration of her argument, she examines the dynamics of the resort to the Inter-American System of Rights Protection by Brazilian civil society organizations, after the country's transition from military rule in the 1980s.

Ms. Bernardes completed her undergraduate law degree at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. In 2000 she completed a masters degree in law at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, ranking first in her class. Ms. Bernardes was a Hauser Global Scholar and received an LL.M. at NYU School of Law in 2001.  She is the academic coordinator of the Human Rights Center at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses.

Robert Dufresne
Canada

Mr. Dufresne is a J.S.D. student from Canada, specializing in international law. His academic interests include public international law, international law of human rights, the law of the use of force, history and theory of international law, and globalization. His dissertation focuses on the involvement of foreign corporations in commercial transactions embedded in internal or transboundary conflicts and examines the forms of responsibility under international law entailed thereby. It deals for instance with the extractive industry's exploitation of resources located in regions under guerrilla control (e.g. as has occurred in Liberia or the Democratic Republic of the Congo) or in close collaboration with state authorities of an oppressive regime. He studies under the supervision of Professor Benedict Kingsbury.

Mr. Dufresne holds an LL.B/B.C.L. (Distinction) from McGill University in Montreal. After having clerked with Justice André Brossard of the Quebec Court of Appeal, he graduated on top of NYU School of Law's LL.M (International Legal Studies) program in 2000. In 2000-2001, he served as a law clerk with the International Court of Justice in The Hague, The Netherlands. Mr. Dufresne has also worked as a research assistant for Professor Alain Pellet during the 2001 session of the International Law Commission. He has recently published articles on international IP rights regimes and distributive justice, as well as on the difficulty to attach international legal responsibility to oil corporations more or less directly involved in patterns of organized violence instrumental to their activities.   

Omer Kimhi
Israel

Mr. Kimhi received an LL.B magna cum laude from the Tel-Aviv University in 1998. In addition, he has a B.A. in Economics, magna cum laude, and an M.B.A. majoring in finance and accounting, magna cum laude, both from Tel-Aviv University. He completed an LL.M. in Corporation Law from New York University School of Law. Currently, Mr. Kimhi is writing a doctoral dissertation on the legal aspects of municipal insolvency.

Sagit Mor
Israel

Ms. Mor is a J.S.D. Candidate at NYU School of Law and an Ed Roberts Postdoctoral Fellow in Disability Studies at University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertaion explores the role of the differentiated structure of disability benefits in the scheme of ableism in Israeli society. Her areas of academic interst include disability legal studies, disability critique of Israeli society, law and social change, and social welfare law. Her recent article "Between Charity, Welfare, and Warfare: Privileges and Neglect in the Politics of Disability Policy, A Disabilities Legal Studies Analysis" is to be published in Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities (forthcoming winter 2006).

Ms. Mor holds an LL.B. from Tel-Aviv University and an LL.M. from NYU School of Law. She is also admitted to the Israeli bar. She clerked for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, Prof. Aharon Barak, worked as an attorney in Bizchut, a disability rights organization, and was also involved in various human rights activities in Israel and New York.

Yair Sagy
Israel

Yair Sagy, a former Samuel I. Golieb Fellow in Legal History at NYU School of Law, specializes in legal history, American and comparative administrative law, and legal theory, in particular critical theory. His doctoral dissertation explores various models of administrative regulation that have been offered in the past 150 years in the United States with a view to legitimizing agencies' encroachments on civil rights. Specifically, the dissertation critically analyses the pivotal "model of expertise," which had its heyday during the Progressive Era, although its dominance is still felt today in administrative law jurisprudence.

Mr. Sagy completed his LL.B. degree at the University of Tel-Aviv, Israel, in 1996. He practiced law for three years, participating in the presentation of landmark petitions to the Supreme Court of Israel. In 2002, he graduate from Tel Aviv University School of History, receiving an M.A. in History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, summa cum laude. He subsequently completed his LL.M. degree at NYU School of Law.

Roy Schoendorf
Israel

Mr. Schoendorf came to the J.S.D. program of NYU Law School from Tel-Aviv, Israel. He is writing his dissertation – "A Theory of International Criminal Law" - under the supervision of Professor Theodor Meron. His academic interests focus on public international law, in particular international criminal law, history and theory of international law and international humanitarian law. In the course of his studies at NYU, Mr. Schoendorf was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship, the Hauser Scholarship and various scholarships of New York University. He recently published an article entitled "Armed Conflicts between States and Non-State Actors: Is There A Need for A New Legal Regime?" in the New York University Journal of Law and Politics. In addition, a commentary he authored on a number of ICTR decisions will soon be published in the Series Annotated Leading Cases of International Criminal Tribunals.

Mr. Schoendorf graduated first from his law class from Tel-Aviv University, Israel, in 1995. He also received a bachelor's degree in economics summa cum laude in the same year. In 1999, he received a master's degree in law and economics from Tel-Aviv University, magna cum laude. He then served for more than six years as senior legal advisor in the international law department of the Israeli Defense Forces Military Advocate General Unit, where he earned officer course honors and an award for excellence. He took an active part in the Middle East peace negotiations, representing the Israeli government in various peace negotiations with Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians. Mr. Schoendorf was a member of the Israeli delegation to the United Nations Preparatory Commission on the establishment of the International Criminal Court. He also interned with Judge Eric Moese, the current President of the ICTR; participated in the summer colloquium in International Criminal Law of the Hague Academy of International Law; and authored a report for the Israeli Government on the Israeli-Palestinian permanent status water negotiations. Finally, he spent the summer of 2004 working on international law cases, as a summer associate for Debevoise & Plimpton LLP.

Arun Thiruvengadam
India

Mr. Thiruvengadam completed B.A., LL.B (Hons.) and LL.M degrees from the National Law School of India, Bangalore in 1995 and 2001 respectively. He served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Ahmadi at the Supreme Court of India, and practiced before the courts in Delhi for two years. In 2002, he completed an LL.M. in Public Service Law from NYU School of Law, and has been a J.S.D. candidate since the 2001-2002 academic year. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the National University of Singapore, where he will be teaching a course on Public Law.

Mr. Thiruvengadam's research interests are in the fields of constitutional theory, comparative constitutional law, Indian public law, law and development and legal education. In his doctoral dissertation, he focuses on the phenomenon of the citation and use of foreign judicial decisions in domestic constitutional adjudication. By studying this practice in six common law jurisdictions, he seeks to explore differences in underlying conceptions of constitutionalism and constitutional interpretation in these jurisdictions. Based on this analysis, he posits that there are two dominant models of constitutionalism which exist in the contemporary common law world, and explains how understanding the differences between and among these models leads to a fuller appreciation of the dynamics of constitutional adjudication, and poses new research questions for constitutional theorists.

Mu-Te Yu
Taiwan

Mr. Yu holds an LL.B. degree from National Taiwan University, graduating first in his class, and an LL.M. degree from New York University School of Law. At National Taiwan University, he was awarded the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence every semester, the Lin Hsiung-chen Memorial Scholarship (the most competitive general scholarship for Taiwanese undergraduates) and was elected an honorary member of the Phi Tau Phi Scholastic Honor Society. He then served as a quartermaster in the Taiwanese army where he received several commendations. Thereafter, he worked as an associate at a premier law firm in Taipei, where his major responsibilities were litigation and arbitration.

Since his undergraduate years, he has won many awards in legal writing competitions and has published articles on issues such as constitutional law, commercial law, inheritance law, and legal services market. Interested in an academic career, he came to NYU for graduate studies as a Hauser Global Scholar. During his LL.M. studies, he focused on corporate law and constitutional law and was awarded the George Colin Award for Distinction in the LL.M. Corporation Law program. He also served as a graduate editor of NYU School of Law's Journal of International Law and Politics for two years. His doctoral research focuses on the theory and political practice of absolute entrenchment of the constitution, which may be explicitly stipulated in the constitution or judicially recognized by the courts. He is a member of the New York Bar.