Former Obama adviser to deliver lecture

IRISH-BORN Prof Samantha Power, former foreign policy adviser to US president-elect Barack Obama, will, together with her husband Prof Cass Sunstein, deliver their inaugural lecture as Adjunct Professors of Law at UCC this evening.

Prof Power, author of Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World, and Prof Sunstein will deliver a paper entitled Whither America: Law Human Rights in the next US Administration?

Prof Power is the Anna Lindh Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy, based at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, where she was the founding executive director. Prof Power worked for Mr Obama until her resignation from his campaign last March.

Prof Sunstein, who is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and has been involved in constitution-making and law reform activities in a number of states.

Dean of Faculty and Head of Department of Law at UCC, Prof Caroline Fennell, said the lecture provides "an exciting opportunity to hear from two world-class scholars on the role of human rights in the forthcoming US administration".

The appointment of Prof Power and Prof Sunstein as Adjunct Professors of Law at UCC reflected the university's "commitment to world-class legal education and to contributing to international debates on pressing issues of law and public policy", she added.

The lecture takes place at Devere Hall, Áras na Mac Léinn in UCC, at 5.30pm. Anyone wishing to attend the lecture can do so by e-mailing lawevents@ucc.ie or telephoning (021) 4205170.