Professor of Law
Co-Director, Center for International and Comparative Law
ngrossman@ubalt.edu
410.837.4529
John and Frances Angelos Law Center, AL 512
Administrative Assistant: Latosha Davis
410.837.4689
John and Frances Angelos Law Center, Room 1006
Education
LL.M., Georgetown University Law Center
J.D., cum laude, Harvard Law School
B.A., cum laude, Harvard College
Areas of Expertise
Women and International Law
Conflict of Laws
Public International Law
International Courts and Tribunals
International Human Rights
Nienke Grossman is a Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law, where she has taught a variety of International Law topics, as well as Civil Procedure and Conflict of Laws. She is the recipient of the 2018 UB Law Excellence in Teaching Award.
Her scholarship, involving international courts and tribunals, women and international law, judicial selection, and legitimacy, is found in top international law publications, including the American Journal of International Law and the Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law, and she is currently co-editing the Oxford Handbook on Women and International Law. Grossman has presented her work at annual meetings of the American and European Societies of International Law, the Harvard-Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum, in the Organization of American States, and at side events before the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, International Law Week, and the Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court.
Grossman was nominated by the United States and elected to the Inter-American Juridical Committee of the Organization of American States in 2024. She is the first woman, and the first Latina, from the United States to serve in this role. In 2024, she completed a three-year term on the American Society of International Law’s Executive Council, and previously served as elected co-chair of the Women in International Law (2019-2022), and International Courts and Tribunals (2014-2017) interest groups.
In 2023, Grossman served as Special Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Grossman has provided legal advice to states in cases before international courts and tribunals, including the International Court of Justice, and in 2017, she was named to an Independent Panel of Experts to evaluate candidates and formulate recommendations on selection procedures for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Grossman is a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Georgetown University Law Center, where she was a Research Fellow. She clerked for Judge Gerald Bruce Lee of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, also known as the “Rocket Docket.” She is fully bilingual in Spanish and English and has working knowledge of French.
Selected Publications
Books and Book Chapters (or Equivalent)
“Feminist Approaches to International Law,” in Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (forthcoming).
Nienke Grossman, J. Jarpa Dawuni, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, & Hélène Ruiz-Fabri, eds., Oxford Handbook on Women and International Law (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
“The ‘Invisible Court’: A First Look at Gender and Nationality in Registries and Secretariats,” in Oxford Handbook on Women and International Law (Nienke Grossman, J. Jarpa Dawuni, Jaya Ramji-Nogales & Hélène Ruiz-Fabri, eds.) (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
“Women and International Law: Challenges and Opportunities,” in Oxford Handbook on Women and International Law (Nienke Grossman, J. Jarpa Dawuni, Jaya Ramji-Nogales & Hélène Ruiz-Fabri, eds.) (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) (co-authored).
“The Velásquez Rodríguez Case: Its Role in the Development of the Inter-American Human Rights System and Impact,” in International Law Stories (Laura Dickinson, Mark Janis, John Noyes, & Carlos Vázquez, eds.) (Foundation Press, forthcoming) (co-authored with Claudio Grossman).
“Feminist Approaches to International Adjudication,” in Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law (2019).
Nienke Grossman, Harlan Cohen, Andreas Follesdal & Geir Ulfstein, eds., Legitimacy and International Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
“Solomonic Judgments and the Legitimacy of the International Court of Justice” in Legitimacy and International Courts (Nienke Grossman, Harlan Cohen, Andreas Follesdal & Geir Ulfstein, eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
“Legitimacy of International Courts: A Framework,” in Legitimacy and International Courts (Nienke Grossman, Harlan Cohen, Andreas Follesdal & Geir Ulfstein, eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2018) (co-authored).
“Judge Julia Sebutinde: An Unbreakable Cloth,” in International Courts and the African Woman Judge: Unveiled Narratives (Josephine Dawuni & Akua Kuenyehia, eds.) (Routledge Press, 2017).
Journal Articles
“Populism, International Courts, and Women’s Human Rights,” 35 Md. J. Int’l L. 104 (2021).
“Shattering the Glass Ceiling in International Adjudication,” 56 Va. J. Int’l L. 339 (2016).
“Achieving Sex Representative International Court Benches,” 110 Am. J. Int’l L. 82 (2016) (Note).
“The Normative Legitimacy of International Courts,” 86 Temple L. Rev. 61 (2013).
“Sex on the Bench: Do Women Judges Matter to the Legitimacy of International Courts?,” 12 Chi. J. Int’l L. 647 (2012).
“Sex Representation on the Bench: Legitimacy and International Criminal Courts,” 11 Int’l Crim. L. Rev. 453 (2011).
“Legitimacy and International Adjudicative Bodies,” 41 G. W. Int’l L. Rev. 107 (2010).
“Rehabilitation or Revenge: Prosecuting Child Soldiers for Human Rights Violations,” 38 G’town J. Int’l L. 323 (2007), reprinted in part in Sara Dillon, International Child Rights (Carolina Academic Press, 2009).