MODERATOR
Merle H. Weiner
Philip H. Knight Professor, University of Oregon School of Law
Merle H. Weiner is a Philip H. Knight Professor at the University of Oregon School of Law. She graduated from Dartmouth College (B.A.), Harvard University (J.D.) and Cambridge University (LL.M.). Professor Weiner founded the University of Oregon’s Domestic Violence Clinic in 1999, a grant-funded program that provides legal services to low-income survivors of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and stalking, and then served as its faculty director for twenty years.
Professor Weiner has written extensively about the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and how it affects domestic violence victims who are fleeing transnationally for safety. Her work has been cited by the United States Court of Appeals for the First, Second, Sixth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits, as well as by numerous other courts. She has trained judges, lawyers and law professors on the topic, including through the auspices of the National Criminal Justice Training Center, the National Association of Women Judges, the ABA Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, the Practicing Law Institute, and the Association of American Law Schools. In addition, she has advised domestic violence organizations filing amicus briefs in Hague Abduction Convention cases (including four out of five cases before the U.S. Supreme Court), served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Private International Law, and worked with members of Congress to try to improve U.S. law for survivors of domestic violence who are negatively impacted by the Hague Abduction Convention. She is actively involved with Hague Mothers (A FiLiA legacy project) and the Narkis Golan International Child Abduction Initiative (a project of Sanctuary for Families).
Professor Weiner is also currently a member of the American Law Institute, the International Society of Family Law, and the President of the national honorary society for law students, Order of the Coif.