CALS welcomes Dr Youssef Aziz as a visiting legal fellow
- Lee-Anne Gaertner
Dr Youssef Aziz joins CALS and the Constitutional Court as an American Society of International Law Fellow
CALS is proud to welcome Dr Youssef Aziz as a legal fellow through the prestigious American Society of International Law Fellowship. Dr Aziz has chosen to complete a joint fellowship in South Africa at CALS and the Constitutional Court where he is working with Justices Majiedt and Kollapen. His work at CALS focuses on questions of access to justice, SLAPP suits, and international litigation.
Dr Aziz earned his JD from New York University School of Law, where he was an articles editor on the NYU Law Review, received the Jerome Lipper Prize for outstanding work in international law, and won the Kim Barry ’98 Memorial Convocation Prize for commitment to human rights. While at NYU, he worked with Foley Hoag LLP on cases before the International Court of Justice. He also worked with the Center for Constitutional Rights on Palestine v. Biden, and with the Legal Empowerment and Judicial Independence Clinic, where he supported the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers in research on access to justice and the impact of artificial intelligence on judicial actors. In addition, he has contributed to Al Shimari v. CACI, the historic Abu Ghraib torture trial.
Beyond his work at CALS, Youssef is actively engaged in the African Society of International Law, where he serves as secretary and co-leads initiatives to support early-career scholars. His research and writing are informed by Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), with a particular interest in how courts and social movements across the Global South contest imperial legacies and advance transformative understandings of law.
When asked why he wanted to work with CALS, he had this to say:
“I chose to work at CALS because of its history of pushing for meaningful social change, from its anti-apartheid roots to its groundbreaking litigation on behalf of marginalized communities. At a moment when the need for transformative legal practice is more urgent than ever, CALS stands out as a space that not only challenges injustice but imagines alternatives. Seeing the work of Professor Christopher Gevers, in particular, in international litigation and his insistence on global solidarity affirmed my desire to be part of a community that combines rigorous legal work with a vision for change beyond borders. I knew this would be the perfect place to begin my legal career alongside like-minded individuals, while embracing a radically non-Western view of how the law is shaped and shapes our lives.”