Faculty/Staff ProfileTitle

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 international law courses, 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 2026, Grossman received the University System of Maryland Regents Award for Excellence in Public Service, in recognition of her strong commitment to 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 is currently Vice-Chair of the Committee. Grossman is also a member of the Free Yezidi Foundation’s Board and its former Co-Chair, and she is an advisor to the Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children. In 2023, Grossman was Special Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Grossman has 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, and of ASIL’s Signature Topic on Advancing Gender Justice. In 2017, she served on an independent panel of experts to evaluate candidates to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Prior to joining UBaltLaw’s faculty, Grossman was a law clerk to United States Federal District Court Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, an Associate at an international law firm, and a Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center. She is a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Georgetown University Law Center.