Christine Bustany

Christine Bustany is a senior lecturer in international law at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, where she directs the International Law Practicum and teaches law related courses. Bustany’s primary areas of legal expertise include: international law, human rights, comparative constitutional law, and civil litigation. She has experience as an advocate and researcher in the nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations sector, working on international human rights and development issues, as well as a practicing attorney engaging in complex commercial litigation at the international law firm of O’Melveny and Meyers in New York. Bustany has served as a pro bono lawyer in a range of civil and political rights matters in US courts and international fora, including successfully representing petitioners before the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

As an academician and clinician, Bustany taught at Boston University School of Law in its International Human Rights Law Clinic, and also directed the International Legal Practice program at Suffolk University Law School, as part of its nationally-ranked clinical programs. In these positions, she developed rich expertise in experiential education—teaching international human rights advocacy and private sector related practice courses and supervising student fieldwork. Bustany also taught law for a semester at the American University of Beirut in Beirut, Lebanon.

Bustany received a Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations from Brown University, and a Juris Doctorate from Fordham University School of Law. In addition, she studied political science and economics at the Institut D’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) in Paris, France, and was a Fulbright fellow in Cairo, Egypt.

For the 2022-2023 academic year, Bustany has an Institute of American Universities (IAU) research fellowship in France; and since 2021, Bustany has been an affiliated faculty member of the Fares Center For Eastern Mediterranean Studies.

Research/Areas of Interest:

International human rights law and comparative constitutional law, including with regard to minority rights, statelessness, immigration detention, international law and the Global South, and the Middle East; and clinical and experiential legal education.

Tufts University Appointments

• Senior Lecturer
  Tufts University, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 1 Nov 2018 - present
• Adjunct Assistant Professor
  Tufts University, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 1 Sep 2018 - 31 Oct 2018