Global Centennial Scholars

Professor István Gellérthegyi received both his J.D. and his Ph.D. in Law from Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Law in Budapest. Since 1997, he has organized and taught courses for Santa Clara Law's summer program in Budapest. Professor Gellérthegyi lectured at SCU Law in 1999 on International Environmental and International Business Transactions and currently teaches a course in international environmental law.

Professor Gellérthegyi serves as the Acting Vice Dean and Professor of the Faculty of Administrative Sciences and Head Post-graduate Department of Environmental Administration at Corvinus University of Budapest. He has held teaching and lecture positions at Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest Faculty of Law and at Szent István University since 1994. Professor Gellérthegyi specializes in international environmental law, European environmental law, international business transactions, and administrative law and has authored and edited numerous legal textbooks in these areas. His extensive experience in environmental research includes serving as President of Environmental Protection Law Department of Hungarian Law Society, President of the Supervisory Board of World Wildlife Fund Hungary, and over ten years as the General Manager of the Hungarian Ministry of Environment and Water Management. Santa Clara Law students have the opportunity to take International Environmental Law with Professor István Gellérthegyi during the 2011 spring semester.

Professor Jongcheol Kim holds an LL.B. and an LL.M. in public law from Seoul National University in Korea and an LL.M. and Ph.D. from London School of Political Science and Economics. For his doctoral research, he received full funding from the Republic of Korea Government Scholarship. His master's degree coursework also received full funding from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office Scholarship. Professor Kim became a full-time lecturer at Hanyang University in 1999 and presently teaches constitutional law at Yonsei University in Seoul, where he served as Vice Dean for General Affairs from 2008 to 2010 and as Director of Yonsei Center for Public Governance and Law of Yonsei Institute for Legal Studies.

Professor Jongcheol Kim is an expert on Korean Constitutional Law and researches in the comprehensive areas of constitutional law, administrative law and socio-legal theories. He has contributed a number of articles in English and Korean to books published by Routledge and Edward Elgar Publishing, as well as prominent Korean law reviews, including Korean Public Law Review, Korean Constitutional Law Review and Korean Journal of Law and Society.

He takes a part as an executive director in core academic associations in Korea. He has worked as a professional witness for the Constitutional Court and a policy advisor for a number of government institutions and non-governmental organizations. He is also very active as a public commentator by way of writing a variety of columns in newspapers, contributing essays to books for general public and taking part in TV debates and interviews on constitutional and socio-legal issues.

Santa Clara Law students will have the opportunity to take Comparative Constitutional Law with Professor Kim during the 2011 spring semester.

Professor Peter Mirfield received his BA in Jurisprudence in 1971, BCL in 1972, and MA in 1976 from Oxford University. Professor Mirfield began his legal career in 1963 as barrister-at-law of Lincoln's Inn and of North Eastern Circuit for which he received the Hardwicke Scholarship in 1971 and the Kennedy Scholarship in 1973. He has held several professorships at both Santa Clara University and Florida State University, where he was a scholar in international law from 1987 to 1988.

Since 1976, Professor Mirfield has taught at the University of Leeds, Stanford University, the University of San Diego, Jesus College, and the University of Oxford, where he presently teaches evidence. His other research and teaching specializations include criminal law and contract law. Professor Mirfield has taught SCU law students in summer courses at Oxford University since 1981

Most recently, he was appointed a Yorke distinguished visiting fellow at Fitzwilliam College at the University of Cambridge for the 2011 Lent and Easter terms. Professor Mirfield has published over thirty articles in leading English law reviews and US journals, as well as numerous book contributions and book reviews.

Santa Clara Law students have the opportunity to take Comparative Criminal Law and Evidence with Professor Mirfield during the 2010 fall semester.

Professor Yasuhei Taniguchi received his basic law degree from Kyoto University in 1957 and was fully qualified in 1957 as full jurist after two year training at Legal Training & Research Institute of the Japanese Supreme Court.  He was then appointed an associate professor at Kyoto University.  Having a two-year leave from the university in 1962, he earned an LL.M. in 1963 from UC Berkeley and J.S.D. in 1964 from Cornell University.  He spent a year at Harvard Law School in 1970-71 as research associate with Prof. Jerome A. Cohen in Chinese law and spent a year at University of Cologne, Germany, as  the Alexander von Humboldt Fellow.  He also had shorter stays for research at University of Florence, Italy, and University of Aix-Marseilles.

He taught civil procedure, insolvency law and other subjects at Kyoto University until the mandatory retirement in 1998.   Then, he moved to Tokyo to continue to teach at Teikyo University, Tokyo Keizai University and Senshu University until he finally retired from regular teaching in 2009.  He has also taught in many law schools outside of Japan such as Michigan, Berkeley, Duke, Georgetown, Stanford, Harvard, NYU, Richmond, Hawaii in the US (chronologically), Melbourne and Murdoch in Australia, Hong Kong University and University of Paris XII.   After retirement from Kyoto University, he joined a Tokyo law firm, Matsuo & Kosugi, as of counsel.

He has occupied various non-academic positions, notably as the chair of Kyoto Labor Relations Commission (1979-1992) and as a member of the Appellate Body of WTO in Geneva (2000-2007).  He is currently the president of the Japan Association of Arbitrators and the chair of Financial Transactions Watching Committee of the Bank of Japan.  He often serves as arbitrator in large international commercial arbitration.

Outside of numerous books and articles in Japanese, he published more than 50 articles in non-Japanese languages (mostly in English). 

He taught at Santa Clara Law School’s summer program in Tokyo for more than 15 years until it became incompatible with the duty as a member of the WTO Appellate Body.  Professor Taniguchi resumed teaching Santa Clara students in Tokyo in 2010.