Professor Dr. Martin Nettesheim International Law and Common Market Expert and Educator

democratic theory in settings of multi-level governance and a publication about the protection of personal privacy.Professor Dr. Martin Nettesheim is Professor of Law at the University of Tubingen Law School since 2000. He is chaired Professor for German Public Law, Public European Community Law, International Law, and International Political Theory, and Director of the Tubingen University Center for International Economic Law (TURCIEL). He studied law at the Universities of Freiburg, Berlin, and Ann Arbor (Michigan). He also holds a degree in Economics. Professor Nettesheim has taught courses at various universities (Berkeley, Miami, Athens, Nanjing, and Kyoto). He has served as Dean of the Law School (2003-2005) and is a Member of the Board of the Center for Studies in Federalism at the University of Tubingen. He chairs the Working Group on European Constitutional Law within the Association of German Professors of Public Law. Professor Nettesheim has published comprehensively in the areas of EU Law, International Economic Law, and German Constitutional Law. He is editor of a multivolume commentary on the Treaties on the European Union (Grabitz, Hilf, & Nettesheim, Das Recht der Europaischen Union) and author of a comprehensive introduction to EU law (Oppermann, Classen, & Nettesheim, Europarecht). His current projects include a book about 1. You are a visiting professor at the St. Thomas University (STU) School of Law and its Intercultural Human Rights Program. What keeps you going back to that school?It is a combination of factors. I find this program highly interesting. I think it is an important contribution to the academic field and something at the forefront of legal education. I want to contribute to the academic environment, but I also profit from the input of my students who come from areas of the world that I may not really know and who bring perspectives I do not really get when I am in Germany or when I teach at Berkeley. It is about both giving and receiving.2. The course you are teaching focuses on International Economic Law and Human Rights. What is the relevance behind the connection? In other words, why is it important to study human rights in the context of the economy? Specifically, could you comment as it relates to Miami as a gateway to the Americas?It is important to look at human rights per se as an institution of public international law. However, if you do not study the economic, cultural, and social environment in which these human rights play their role and have to be effectuated then you will not get the full picture. My purpose here is to show students how human rights are emerging as an interpretive and delimiting factor in the operation of the international economic system: markets, trade, investments, and business operations.I feel Miami is at the center of one part of the international economic environment. I think it is a gateway between the United States and South America, and can perhaps become a gateway toward Africa at some point, when Africa emerges.3. What made you decide to focus on this field of study, and why is it important?I was already interested in economics when I did my studies in law. In the German system, you can actually pursue two different fields of study at the same time. So, I studied law and economics as separate fields. At some point, I had to decide what I wanted to do, and so I became a professor of law. But, that did not keep me away from continuing to be interested in economic issues. When you look at my main field of expertise, common market, European Common Market, International Common Market, these are dynamic areas and vibrant fields of academic discussion.4. As a Catholic Institution, STU focuses on social justice. How would you appraise the status of our overall society from the point of view of a global economy?By heart, I am an optimistic person, so I am not adhering to these general philosophical ideas of inevitable progress that have been so prevalent in the 19th century. …