Renowned International Law expert has been called upon to speak, consult with numerous national, international organizations

Milena Sterio, the Charles R. Emrick Jr. - Calfee Halter & Griswold Professor of Law at Cleveland State University’s College of Law, has been named a Distinguished Professor of Law. This is the highest honor conferred by the University, awarded to long-standing members of the CSU faculty.

Professor Sterio is a renowned expert in the field of International Law, particularly international relations, issues of statehood and secession, and International Criminal Law. As a result of her expertise, she has been called upon to speak to or consult with numerous national and international organizations.

She has made multiple presentations at United Nations’ forums, speaking on maritime piracy, counterterrorism, and more. In February, Professor Sterio spoke at the U.N. conference in New York on human rights violations resulting from the war in Ukraine. She has also appeared before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee to provide testimony regarding US-Syria policy.

Professor Sterio has actively been writing and contributing to academic journals and blogs since she joined Cleveland State University in 2006. She is the author of seven books, two of which have won Book of the Year by the Association of Droit Penal International. She has published more than 50 scholarly articles, essays, and book chapters published in top-ranked international law journals as well as in mainstream law reviews, including the American University Law Review.

In 2013, Professor Sterio was a Fulbright Scholar in Azerbaijan, where she taught law classes at Baku State University and researched secession issues related to the Nagorno-Karabakh region disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan. 

Professor Sterio has been working on a human rights documentation project focused on the Rohingya refugees. She has been training a cohort of refugees on human rights documentation. The goal of this project is to train and equip the Rohingya to be able to document various human rights violations which happened to them on their own. 

Professor Sterio’s contributions to CSU and her students are equally impressive. In her International War Crimes course, students work directly with some of the existing international criminal tribunals, such as the International Criminal Court, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the Cambodia Tribunal.