Ghana Supreme Court Justice To Visit Washburn Law
The Center for Excellence in Advocacy and Washburn University hosts Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana Professor Tawia Modibo Ocran from March 27 through April 2, 2005.
During his visit Justice Ocran will lecture in a number of Washburn Law classes. Two public lectures are also planned:
- Justice Ocran will give a Brown Bag Lunch Presentation at Washburn University's International House at noon on Thursday, March 31.
- The Justice will talk about public education as a fundamental right at the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site (1515 SE Monroe) on Thursday evening, March 31. Time is to be determined.
Appointed to the Supreme Court of Ghana in May 2004, Tawia Modibo Ocran is a product of St. Augustine's College in Cape Coast, Ghana. He graduated with an L.L.B. (Hons.) and B.L. from the University of Ghana and a Master's degree in Legal Institutions and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Law and Development Studies from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His fields of specialization are International Economic Law, Jurisprudence, and, Comparative Legal Systems.
Professor Ocran's professional career spans a range of experiences as a jurist, academician, a national government executive, and staff member of the United Nations System. He has taught various aspects of international economic law as well as international and comparative law as a Lecturer in Law at the University of Zambia. He served as an Associate Professor of Business Law and Finance at Jackson State University in Mississippi and, for 20 years, as an Associate and Full Professor of Law at The University of Akron in Ohio. Ocran has also been a Research Fellow in African Law at the School of Law, University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), an adjunct Lecturer in Law at the University of Ghana, an adjunct faculty member at the International Law Institute in Washington, D.C. and at the International Development Law Institute (IDLI) in Rome, Italy.
Outside academia, Professor Ocran has held a number of important positions, including the Chief Executive of the Ghana Investments Centre; Chief Legal Officer of the Capital Investments Board of Ghana; Legal/Economic Affairs' Officer of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the UN Centre On Transnational Corporations (UNCTC), Africa Regional Office, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and a Senior Political Affairs Officer of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force for Former Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR) in Croatia.
In addition to the publication of several articles on international investments and international law in professional joumals in the U.S. and Africa, Professor Ocran has authored three books: Law in Aid of Development: Issues in Legal Theory (1978), The Legacy Of Kwame Nkrumah In Contemporary Ghana (1992), and The Crisis of Peacekeeping In Former Yugoslavia (2002).
See also Law Professor Modibo Ocran to Sit on Ghana Supreme Court at the University of Akron School of Law website.
Photo of Justice Ocran courtesy Tim Shoenfelt, © 2004 Shoenfelt.com. All rights reserved. Reuse without permission strictly prohibited.
