A recently signed Memorandum of Understanding between the Law School and Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) of O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) near Delhi, India, establishes a Joint Centre for Global Corporate and Financial Law & Policy, and opens the door for future cooperative efforts between the two schools.
The memorandum signed by Law School Dean Evan Caminker and C. Raj Kumar, JGU’s vice chancellor and dean of JGLS, provides the framework for Michigan and Jindal to develop collaborative initiatives on faculty and student exchange programs, teaching and research initiatives, conferences and publications, and continuing legal education programs.
Michigan Law Dean Evan Caminker (from left), Professor C. Raj Kumar, O.P. Jindal Global University’s vice chancellor and dean of Jindal Global Law School, and Professor Vikramaditya Khanna during a visit last month. Photo by Leisa Thompson.
The center’s directors will be Vikramaditya Khanna, U-M professor of law, and JGLS professors Vivek Pande, Charles Maddox and Ajay Goyal.
Among the areas of planned study are the regulation of financial markets and corporate governance in the United States, India and other jurisdictions. Key activities at the center will be research and legal policy analysis, facilitating development of collaborative research and teaching, and organizing lectures, conferences and symposia.
“The collaboration between the University of Michigan and O.P. Jindal Global University is truly historic and in many ways reflects the strong commitment of both these institutions to promote global education across various disciplines,” Kumar says.
“Michigan Law has a long and proud tradition of global law, and today, most areas of the law have international aspects,” Caminker says. “We look forward to working with O.P. Jindal Global University to establish new initiatives and exchanges of benefit to our students and faculty in this global context.”
As the school’s first step toward developing a strong partnership, JGU has appointed Khanna a Distinguished Visiting Professor for 2010-11. Khanna, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and editor of India Law Abstracts and the White Collar Crime Abstracts on the Social Science Research Network, will travel to India in January and spend a semester teaching courses and pursuing research.
Khanna earned his doctorate in judicial science at Harvard Law School. His areas of research and teaching interest include corporate and securities law, corporate crime, law in India, corporate governance in emerging markets, corporate and managerial liability, and law and economics. He says he is eager to get started on the new effort with JGU.
“Building a strategic relationship with a prestigious Indian institution is important,” Khanna says. “India is one of the fastest growing major economies in the world as well as being the world’s largest democracy and its second most populous nation. Studying legal issues related to India and the U.S. is both fascinating and critical for faculty and students to better understand the role of the law in a fluid, heterogeneous and increasingly global environment.”
