Faculty/Staff Profile Title

Areas of Expertise
Conflict of Laws
International Courts and Tribunals
International Human Rights
Public International Law
Women and International Law

Biography
Nienke Grossman is a Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law, where she has taught a variety of courses involving international law topics, as well as Civil Procedure and Conflict of Laws. She is the recipient of the 2018 School of Law Excellence in Teaching Award. Grossman's scholarship focuses on women and international law, feminist approaches to international law, and international courts and tribunals. She has authored articles, encyclopedia entries and book chapters found in top international law publications, including the American Journal of International Law, the Virginia Journal of International Law, and the Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Procedural Law and of Public International Law. She is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Women and International Law (2025) and of Legitimacy and International Courts (Cambridge, 2018). Grossman has presented her work widely, including at meetings of the American and European Societies of International Law, the Harvard-Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum, in the Organization of American States, and at side events before the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, International Law Week, and the Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court.

In addition to her teaching and scholarship, Grossman has a strong commitment to and demonstrated record of service. In 2024, she was nominated by the United States and elected by Organization of American States member states to the OAS Inter-American Juridical Committee, a regional body of independent international law experts. She is the first woman and the first Latina from the United States to serve in that role. She has served on the Board of the Free Yezidi Foundation, including as its co-chair, and as an advisor to other NGOs involving women's rights. In 2023, she was Special Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Grossman also served on the American Society of International Law’s Executive Council and as co-chair of its Women in International Law and International Courts and Tribunals Interest Groups. She is currently co-chairing ASIL's signature topic on Advancing Gender Justice. Grossman has also provided legal advice to Latin American States in cases before the International Court of Justice, and in 2017, she served on an independent panel of experts to evaluate candidates to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. She served as a law clerk to Judge Gerald Bruce Lee of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Grossman is a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Georgetown University Law Center.