3rd Annual Dean’s Speaker Series Kicks Off October 25
AI Expert and Harvard Law Professor Ruth Okediji to Launch 2023-2024 Series

October 4, 2023

The 3rd Annual Dean’s Speaker Series, the innovation of MSU Law College Dean Linda Sheryl Greene, gets underway on October 25 with featured speaker Harvard Law School Professor, Ruth L. Okediji. The focus of the 2023-2024 Speaker Series is Artificial Intelligence, Law, and Society.

Professor Okediji is Jeremiah Smith. Jr., Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Co-Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Director of Harvard’s Program on Biblical Law & Christian Legal Studies, and Oppenheimer Professor and Director of the Harvard Center for African Studies. She is a renowned scholar in international intellectual property (IP) law and a foremost authority on the role of IP in social and economic development. Professor Okediji will join Dean Greene on October 25 at 12:15 pm to discuss The Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence: The Who, The What, and The Why—And Does it Matter?

Recognized for her expertise in IP, she has advised inter-governmental organizations, regional economic communities, and national governments on a range of matters related to technology, innovation policy, and development. According to her biography, “Her widely cited scholarship on IP and development has influenced government policies in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and South America.”

Her scholarship has shaped “national strategies for the implementation of the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). She works closely with several United Nations agencies, research centers, and international organizations on the human development effects of global rules that regulate public goods, including access to knowledge, access to essential medicines and issues related to indigenous innovation systems.”

A recipient of numerous awards, she is on the editorial boards of the Journal of World Intellectual Property Law and the Journal of International Economic Law. She is the immediate past-President of The Order of the Coif, an elected member of the American Law Institute, and an appointed member of the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and the Law. She is the author or co-author and editor of books and casebooks published by OUP, CUP, West, and Aspen Publishing. Her current monograph, Traditional Knowledge and Modern Justice, is forthcoming in 2025. She is a graduate of the University of Jos and Harvard Law School.

The first speaker in the Dean’s Speaker Series is scheduled for Wednesday, October 25, 2023, from 12:15 – 1:15 pm in in the Castle Board Room. The presentation may also be seen via Livestream and later viewing on the College of Law website.