Robert D. Sloane

Associate Professor of Law
B.A., magna cum laude, Columbia University
J.D., Yale Law School
Diploma, Hague Academy of International Law

Interests: public international law; the law of war; international legal theory and ethics; transnational criminal law; international investment law and arbitration; criminal law; international human rights law and policy; national security and foreign relations law; international business transactions

After receiving his JD in 2000, Professor Robert D. Sloane worked for the International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet (now known as Tibet Justice Center) under the auspices of Yale Law School’s Robert L. Bernstein Fellowship in International Human Rights. He led fact-finding missions to Nepal, India and Tibet, wrote submissions for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and human rights treaty bodies, represented asylum seekers, and published several reports and law journal articles on human rights. Professor Sloane then served two clerkships, first for Judge Robert D. Sack of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Judge Gerard E. Lynch of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (now of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit). He also practiced international law at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York, where he worked on several international arbitrations and helped to litigate the initial stages of the Avena case before the International Court of Justice, challenging the convictions of Mexican nationals on death row based on violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

Before joining Boston University School of Law, Professor Sloane served as a visiting lecturer-in-law and Schell Fellow at Yale, where he taught international human rights and international arbitration, and as an associate-in-law at Columbia. He also continued to practice international law as a consultant, working on arbitrations conducted under the auspices of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, the International Chamber of Commerce and specialized tribunals, as well as assisting with the preparation of expert opinions for foreign sovereigns and multinational corporations. Professor Sloane has published in the fields of public international law, international human rights, international criminal law, asylum law, the law of war, international legal theory, and international investment arbitration. His 2009 article “The Cost of Conflation: Preserving the Dualism of Jus ad Bellum and Jus in Bello in the Contemporary Law of War,” published in Volume 34 of the Yale Journal of International Law, received the Francis Lieber Prize, awarded by the American Society of International Law’s Francis Lieber Society for outstanding scholarship in the field of the law of armed conflict by an author under the age of 35. His 2007 article “Prologue to a Voluntarist War Convention,” published in Volume 106 of the Michigan Law Review, received a certificate of merit from the Francis Lieber Society based on the same criteria. Professor Sloane’s current research focuses on the use and limits of criminal law concepts in international law, international investment arbitration, international jurisprudence and national security law.

Professor Sloane has been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School (Spring 2010) and at Harvard Law School (Spring 2011), where he served as the John Harvey Gregory Lecturer in World Organization; and in the Spring 2012 semester, he will teach public international law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University.

Professor Sloane continues to act as a consultant in international investment arbitrations and on other international legal issues and to carry out international human rights work pro bono for Tibet Justice Center. He serves as chairman of its board of directors.

In 2007, Professor Sloane received a high-level diploma in public international law from the Hague Academy of International Law, one of only three U.S. citizens to receive the degree in the past two decades.