About Us
This is the on-line blog for the Duke TIP summer field study in the Hague. We will be posting student journal entries, commentaries, and photos on this website, which will be accessible to family and friends. Click on each day's webpage for a blog of the days events with photos. For even more photos go to http://picasaweb.google.com/DukeTIPHague/
INSTRUCTIONAL STAFF
Lead Instructor - Professor David J. R. Frakt
Professor Frakt is a law professor at the Barry University Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law in Orlando, Florida. He was previously the Director of the Criminal Law Practice Center at Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, California from May 2005 to June 2010. He earned his B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of California, Irvine and his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School. After clerking for the former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, he served nearly ten years on active duty with the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG) before transitioning to the Air Force Reserve and becoming a law professor. From April 2008 to August 2009, Professor Frakt served as lead defense counsel with the Office of Military Commissions, representing two detainees at Guantanamo facing war crimes and terrorism charges before the U.S. military commissions. He was the first defense counsel to win the pretrial dismissal of all charges against his client, Mohammed Jawad, a juvenile from Afghanistan, and also won Mohammed's release through a habeas corpus petition in federal court. He was solo defense counsel in one of the only two military commission trials completed during President Bush's tenure in office. Professor Frakt is a highly regarded expert in the field of international war crimes, military law and military commissions and has been frequently quoted in the national media, including in the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, New York Review of Books, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Miami Herald, The Nation Magazine and the Atlantic Monthly. 
He has written widely in both scholarly and popular periodicals. His articles and letters have been published in the Washington Post, the New York Review of Books, the Harvard Human Rights Journal, The Duke Law Journal, and the American Journal of Criminal Law, as well as online on Salon.com, CNN.com, Huffington Post, and truthout.org. He has been a repeat guest on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, PRI's "The World" and on CNN. Professor Frakt teaching and scholarship areas are criminal law, criminal procedure, evidence, international war crimes and international humanitarian law. Professor Frakt is married to Myla Remer, and has two sons, Max and Danny Photo-.Prof Frakt on Duke East Campus - First day of class 2009. Photo by Sana Shuja
Group Leader - Jessica Dorsey
Jessica returns for her third year with the program. She is currently a Junior Lecturer at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights in conjunction with Utrecht University. This year, her teaching has included General Principles of International Law to first-year law students as well as Comparative Human Rights to second- and third-year law students. She hopes to further her academic career by continuing to teach as well as by pursuing PhD research in human rights law or transitional justice.
She has also worked for the Municipality of Utrecht as a Human Rights Project Officer where she focused on raising human rights awareness at the local level and building bridges for a more collaborative approach between local government and human rights organizations. This project was performed through a program with the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union.
Before these ventures, she earned cum laude honors through the completion of an LL.M. (advanced law degree) in Public International Law at Utrecht University. Her focus was on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law while she worked part-time for the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights and Global Human Rights Defence, an NGO based in the Hague. Her thesis research centered on the doctrine and the ongoing discussion surrounding the notion of humanitarian intervention. Responsibility to Protect
In 2008, she received her J.D. from Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas, where she earned a Certificate in International and Comparative Law, with distinction. She received her B.A. in English from the University of Kansas in 2004, where she was on the varsity soccer team. Jessica is fluent in Dutch and Spanish and is currently attempting to master French. She makes her home in Utrecht, the Netherlands, where she also lives with her American dog, Zizou.
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Teaching Assistant/Residential Counselor Kristin Leefers
Kris is joining Duke TIP for the first time this summer. She is currently interning in Santa Monica, California at the Natural Resources Defense Council. In the fall, she will start her final year of law school at Duke University. In addition to environmental law, Kris’ main area of study is international criminal law. She has taken numerous courses and has visited the many courts in The Hague in the past. She also was a member of a legal clinic at the law school, providing defense for detainees in Guantanamo.
Kris loves to travel, and was first bit by the travel bug when she went on a high school trip to Europe. Since then she has been to over two dozen countries for work, studying, and fun. She received her bachelor’s degree cum laude in international relations from Michigan State University. She studied abroad four times and also minored in international development, African studies, and Asian studies. Following undergrad, she served in the U.S. Peace Corps as a volunteer in Paraguay, teaching beekeeping to farmers. Kris is fluent in Spanish, and loves picking up bits of other languages. When she’s not busy planning her next adventure, Kris enjoys being outdoors. The beach is her favorite place to relax, and she’s just starting to learn how to surf.