ILS' Advisor
Advisor Profile:
Director, International Programs
806.742.3990 x252
Admitted to Practice in Texas, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, and U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Western Districts of Texas.
Education
B.A. Harvard University, 1984J.D., Harvard University, 1990
Teaches: Public International Law, International Business Transactions, NAFTA and Professional Responsibility
After graduating from Harvard Law School, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, Professor Ramírez served as a law clerk to the Honorable Homer Thornberry on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
After his judicial clerkship, Professor Ramírez gained experience in three areas of the legal profession: commercial litigation, poverty law, and non-profit law. Professor Ramírez first practiced law as a commercial litigator with the firm of Susman Godfrey, L.L.P. in Houston, Texas. He represented various corporate clients injured by, among other things, breach of contract, fraud, and/or anti-competitive behavior. Three years later, he accepted an offer from Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc. to become managing attorney for the Farm Worker Health and Safety Project in Weslaco, Texas. In that capacity, Professor Ramírez initiated and managed environmental and occupational safety litigation for indigent clients injured throughout the United States. He also assisted international non-governmental organizations on cross-border environmental issues. In 1996, Professor Ramírez became executive director of the Texas Democratic Party and later served as acting general counsel.
Professor Ramírez has lectured and written, both in the United States and Mexico, on various topics including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), international environmental issues, and farm worker law. He has also served as a visiting professor in a graduate program on comparative law at the Universidad Autónoma de Asunción Paraguay. Professor Ramírez administers our international study abroad programs in Spain, France and Mexico. His responsibilities include teaching international law courses at our Summer Law Institute in Guanajuato, Mexico. He was selected as one of five professionals to travel to Brazil in May of 2006 as a participant in a Group Study Exchange Program ("GSP") sponsored by the International Rotary Foundation. The GSP provides participants with an opportunity to meet with colleagues in Brazil to discuss opportunities for collaboration, study and research. Professor Ramirez also participated in the "American Swiss Foundation Young Leaders Conference" held in Ermatingen, Switzerland in May, 2005. Participants in the Conference are nominated by prominent American and Swiss citizens and provide the next generation of leaders in Switzerland and the U.S. an opportunity to develop a deeper awareness of the other's perspective. The bipartisan group of fifty participants (half American and half Swiss) is selected on the basis of outstanding professional and personal achievement.
Professor Ramírez received the President's Excellence in Teaching Award for 2006; was one of three Texas Tech University professors awarded the "Above and Beyond" Teaching Award by the Texas Tech College of Education in 2005; received the Texas Tech Alumni Association's New Faculty Award for 2002; was nominated for the 2002 Hemphill Wells New Professor Excellence in Teaching Award; was nominated for the 2003 Spencer A. Wells Faculty Award for Creative and Imaginative Teaching; and was nominated for the 2004 President's Academic Achievement Award. He was appointed by the University Provost to serve on the Law School Dean Search Committee in 2002 as well as the search committee for the new Associate Provost for International Affairs and Director of the International Cultural Center. He currently serves as a member of the University's Bioterrorism Faculty Forum, the University's International Affairs Council and was appointed to serve on the Advisory Board of the International Center for Arid and Semi-Arid Land Studies. He is also a Director with the Texas Lyceum Association and a charter member of Raiders Rojos National Alumni, a chapter of Texas Tech Alumni Association.
Selected Publications
- "Iraq War: Anticipatory Self-Defense or Unlawful Unilateralism," 34 California Western International Law Journal 1 (Fall 2003).
- "Rules of Origin - NAFTA's Heart but FTAA's Heartburn," 29 Brooklyn Journal of International Law 617 (March, 2004).
- "International Law Impacts Texas and the Texas Tech School of Law Responds," 35 Texas Tech Law Review 265 (Spring, 2004).
