The Middle East Legal Studies Seminar (MELSS) brings together leading practitioners, judges, and legal academics from across the Middle East to meet yearly with YLS faculty and students. As in Latin America, the Law School became involved in the Middle East to create a forum in which influential judges, lawyers, and scholars from the region could exchange ideas and forge ties with one another.

 

MELSS is an annual meeting held since 1998 in which lawyers, judges, and law professors from the Middle East gather with several Yale professors and students. The seminar currently involves about 45 participants. Past topics have included the concept of legal authority, fundamental rights, and religious pluralism. The seminar has successfully brought together established and emerging leaders who are open to reform and committed to democracy in their own countries.

Contact Brad Hayes for more details.