Professor David Wippman is a recognized authority in international law. He has taught public international law, international criminal law, international human rights, and ethnic conflict. He received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Princeton University in 1976, his M.A. through a fellowship in the Graduate Program in English Literature at Yale University in 1978, and his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1982. While at Yale, he was the editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. He clerked for The Honorable Wilfred Feinberg, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Professor Wippman became Dean of the University of Minnesota Law School on July 1, 2008.
Previously, he was a professor and Associate Dean at Cornell Law School and served as Vice Provost for International Relations at Cornell University.
In 1998–99, he had taken a year away from Cornell to serve as a director in the National Security Council's Office of Multilateral and Humanitarian Affairs, where he worked on war crimes issues, the International Criminal Court, economic sanctions, and U.N. political issues.
Before joining Cornell, Professor Wippman practiced law for nine years in Washington, D.C., with a focus on international arbitration, political consulting on public and private international law issues, and representation of developing countries in litigation. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. He has co-authored two recently released books on international law: International Law, Norms, Actors, Process: A Problem-Oriented Approach and Can Might Make Rights? Building the Rule of Law After Military Interventions.
Can Might Make Rights?: Building the Rule of Law After Military Interventions (Cambridge University Press, 2006) (with Jane E. Stromseth & Rosa Brooks)
International Law: Norms, Actors, Process: A Problem-oriented Approach (Aspen Publishers, 1st ed., 2002; 2nd ed. 2006) (with Jeffrey L. Dunoff & Steven R. Ratner)
Teacher's Manual: International Law: Norms, Actors, Process (Aspen Publishers, 1st ed., 2002; 2nd ed., 2006) (with Jeffrey L. Dunoff & Steven R. Ratner)
New Wars, New Laws?: Applying the Laws of War in 21st Century Conflicts (Transnational Publishers, 2005) (co-editor with Matthew Evangelista)
International Law and Ethnic Conflict (Cornell University Press, 1998) (editor)
Book Chapters
Exaggerating the ICC, in Bringing Power to Justice?: The Prospects of the International Criminal Court (Joanna Harrington, Michael Milde & Richard Vernon, eds., McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006)
Introduction: Do New Wars Call for New Laws?, in New Wars, New Laws?: Applying the Laws of War in 21st Century Conflicts (David Wippman & Matthew Evangelista, eds., Transnational Publishers, 2005)
The International Criminal Court, in The Politics of International Law (Christian Reus-Smit, ed., Cambridge University Press, 2004)
Can an International Criminal Court Prevent and Punish Genocide?, in Protection Against Genocide: Mission Impossible? (Neal Riemer, ed., Praeger, 2000)
Pro-Democratic Intervention by Invitation, in Democratic Governance and International Law (Gregory H. Fox & Brad R. Roth, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Introduction: Ethnic Claims and International Law, in International Law and Ethnic Conflict (David Wippman, ed., Cornell University Press, 1998)
Practical and Legal Constraints on Internal Powersharing, in International Law and Ethnic Conflict (David Wippman, ed., Cornell University Press, 1998)
Enforcing The Peace: ECOWAS and the Liberian Civil War, in Enforcing Restraint: Collective Intervention in Internal Conflicts (Lori Fisler Damrosch, ed., Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993)
Journal Articles
The Nine Lives of Article 2(4), 16 Minnesota Journal of International Law 387 (2007)
Legal Aspects of Peace Enforcement in Africa, Africa Notes 1 (May 1995)
Hearing Voices Within the State: Internal Conflicts and the Claims of Ethno-national Groups, 27 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 585 (1995)
Book Review, 97 American Journal of International Law 457 (2003) (reviewing Brian D. Lepard, Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention: A Fresh Legal Approach Based on Fundamental Ethical Principles in International Law and World Religions (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002))
Justice: The Past and Future of War Crimes Prosecutions, 5 International Journal of Human Rights 90 (Winter 2001) (reviewing Gary Jonathan Bass, Stay the Hand of Vengeance (Princeton University Press, 2000) & The United States and the International Criminal Court (Sarah B. Sewell & Carl Kaysen, eds., Rowman and Littlefield, 2000))
Book Review, 93 American Journal of International Law 744 (1999) (reviewing Ruth Lapidoth, Autonomy: Flexible Solutions to Ethnic Conflicts (U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1997))
Book Review, 91 American Journal of International Law 560 (1997) (reviewing Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict (Chester A. Croker and Fen Osler Hampson, eds., with Pamela Aall, United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996))
Book Review, 88 American Journal of International Law 388 (1994) (reviewing Peoples and Minorities in International Law (Catherine Brolmann, Rene Lefeber & Marjoleine Zieck, eds., Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1993))
NATO Intervention in Kosovo and the Boundaries of International Law, in Proceedings of the 11th Annual Conference of the African Society of International & Comparative Law (1999)
Powersharing as a Response to Cultural Dominance, in Proceedings of the 90th Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law 206 (1996)
