Wayne State University Law School is pleased to announce the creation of the Cohn Family Endowed Scholar in Legal History.

The Cohn Scholar was established by a distinguished Detroit judge, The Honorable Avern Cohn of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Judge Cohn has served that Court since his appointment by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.

Judge Cohn was born in Detroit. He practiced law in the city from 1949 until his appointment to the bench. He has long been a generous supporter of the Law School, and this gift is only one among many contributions he has made over the years to support the capital campaign, scholarship, and students.

The Cohn Family Endowed Scholar in Legal History will be used to support the research, teaching, and scholarly activities for the holder of the appointment; the appointment will be for a two year period. In the second year of the appointment, the Cohn Family scholar will deliver a public presentation on historical aspects of his or her area of specialization.

The inaugural recipient of the Cohn Family Endowed Scholar in Legal History is Professor Gregory H. Fox. Professor Fox has been at the WSU Law School since 2003. His area of expertise is international law. The Cohn Scholar will support Professor Fox\'s work on the international administration of territory, a situation in which the United Nations and other international actors become the government of part or all of a country. The best known cases are Kosovo, Bosnia, and East Timor. Professor Fox\'s book on this subject, Humanitarian Occupation, will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2007.

Professor Fox\'s other published works include several book chapters and over a dozen articles about various topics in international law. He has also served as counsel in cases in national and international courts. He was co-counsel for the State of Eritrea in an arbitration with the Republic of Yemen over ownership of islands in the southern Red Sea. He is currently counsel for a group of Eritreans who were forcibly expelled from Ethiopia during the war between the two countries and had their property confiscated by the government. He also worked on Doe v. Karadzic, a class action case against the former Bosnian Serb leader for mass human rights violations.

Professor Fox has held fellowships from the Schell Center for Human Rights at Yale Law School, the Social Science Research Council/ MacArthur Foundation, and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and Public International Law in Heidelberg, Germany.

Professor Fox received his J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1986 and his B.A., cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and with Highest Honors, from Bates College. This fall he is teaching Civil Procedure and Conflicts of Law and in the spring will teach Human Rights and Contemporary Problems in International Law.