Mohammad Hamdy LL.M. ’11, an S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law, was selected by the American Society of International Law (ASIL) as a 2015 Helton Fellow.
Selected from a pool of applicants from around the world, Hamdy is one of three students who received the 2015 Helton Fellowship. Fellows receive grants of $2,000 to pursue fieldwork in or research on issues involving human rights, international criminal law, humanitarian affairs, and other international law areas.
A teaching fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Hamdy is currently serving as a research assistant at Program on International Law and Armed Conflict, where he examines state practice and international law for the Extraterritorial Use of Lethal Force Project. Before joining Harvard, he taught public international law for three years at Alexandria University and the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport in Egypt.
His research interests include public international law, international economic law, human rights, legal theory, Arab and Islamic law, and legal education. Hamdy wrote his master’s thesis on the Nile Basin dispute. His S.J.D. dissertation focuses on international investment law, with particular emphasis on the relationship between the legal regime of investment and economic efficiency.
ASIL established the Helton Fellowship Program in 2004 in memory of its member Arthur C. Helton, an internationally renowned lawyer and advocate for the rights of refugees and internally displaced persons. Helton died in the August 19, 2003, bombing of the United Nations mission in Baghdad. Helton fellowships are funded by charitable contributions from Society members.
Hamdy’s Helton Fellowship project is part of ongoing research exploring the role and legal status of human rights NGOs in Egypt. In particular, his project seeks to register how NGOs are organized under local laws, how they manage to conduct their activities under current Egyptian legal restrictions, and how they will be able to continue to function after decrees instituting severe criminal penalties for individuals involved in organizations that receive foreign funding.
The Helton Fellowship Program is administered by ASIL through its Career Development Program. It is funded by a grant from the Planethood Foundation and contributions from ASIL members.
ASIL is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational membership organization. It was founded in 1906, chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1950, and has held Category II Consultative Status to the Economic and Social Council of the UN since 1993. ASIL’s mission is to foster the study of international law and to promote the establishment and maintenance of international relations on the basis of law and justice. The Society’s nearly 4,000 members (from more than 100 countries) comprise attorneys, academics, corporate counsel, judges, representatives of governments and nongovernmental organizations, international civil servants, students, and others interested in international law.