Narrative Biography

Michael J. Bazyler

Michael J. Bazyler is Professor of Law and The "1939" Club Law Scholar in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California. He is also a research fellow at the Holocaust Education Trust in London; and the holder of previous fellowships at Harvard Law School and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. In Fall 2006, he was a Research Fellow at  Yad Vashem in Jerusalem (The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority of Israel) and the holder of the Baron Friedrich Carl von Oppenheim Chair for the Study of Racism, Antisemitism and the Holocaust.

Bazyler is the author of over a dozen law review articles on subjects covering public international law, international human rights law, international trade law and comparative law. His work has been published in such journals as The University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Kansas Law Review, Arizona Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, University of Richmond Law Review, Stanford Journal of International Law, Berkeley Journal of International Law, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, and Fordham Journal of International Law.

After twenty-five years of teaching at Whittier Law School, Bazyler joined the Chapman law faculty in Fall, 2008. Over his 27-year law teaching career, Bazyler has been a visiting professor, including a distinguished visiting professor, at various law schools in the United States, Australia, Russia, Belarus, and Israel. He teaches Comparative Law, Public International Law, International Human Rights Law, International Business Litigation, International Business Transactions, Criminal Law, Torts, Civil Procedure and a course he created entitled The Holocaust, Genocide and the Law.

Bazyler has also delivered the Austin Owen Lecture at the University of Richmond and the Feibel Family Lecture at Ohio State University.

Bazyler is a leading authority on the use of American and European courts to redress genocide and other historical wrongs. His book on the subject, Holocaust Justice: The Battle for Restitution in America’s Courts (New York University Press, 2003, soft cover 2005), was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and reviewed in the Harvard Law Review, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times (London), and The Economist. He is a contributor of chapters to various books on genocide and the law, and the co-editor/author with Roger Alford of Holocaust Restitution: Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy (New York University Press, 2006; soft cover 2007).

He has also testified in Congress before the House Reform Committee on the subject of Holocaust restitution and has been interviewed by CNN, 60 Minutes, CBS Sunday Morning, Dateline NBC, ABC News, Voice of America, the Australian Broadcasting Company, National Public Radio and the BBC.

He is presently working on two books: a textbook based upon his Holocaust law course entitled The Holocaust, Genocide and Justice and a Comparative Law casebook entitled Comparative Law: Global Legal Traditions in the 21^st Century (with Russell Miller of University of Idaho, Peter Yu of Michigan State and Abdullahi An-Na`im of Emory University) to be published by LexisNexis.