J.D. 2002, Yale Law School; M.P.A. 2002, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government; B.A. 1997 (magna cum laude), University of California, Los Angeles. Professor Atuahene has varied experiences in the field of law and international development. During law school, she worked as a legal consultant for the World Bank and as a human rights investigator for the Center for Economic and Social Rights, where she received Amnesty International’s Patrick Stewart Human Rights Award for her work with human rights organizations throughout South America. After law school, Professor Atuahene was in South Africa as a Fulbright Scholar. She served as a judicial clerk at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, working for Justices Madala and Ngcobo. She then practiced as an associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York, where she focused on sovereign debt and real estate transactions. Professor Atuahene joined the Chicago-Kent faculty in 2005. She teaches Law, Policy and International Development; Property; and International Business Transactions. In 2007 she was selected to become a Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation, which is a socio-legal think tank based in Chicago. Broadly, Professor Atuahene's research focuses on the property related aspects of transitional justice. In 2008, she won the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship and worked with the South African Director General of Land Affairs and his staff. She is presently writing a book about the Land Restitution Program, which is based on 150 interviews she conducted of program beneficiaries. She is also directing and producing a documentary film about one family's struggle to reclaim their land.
Articles
Things Fall Apart: The Illegitimacy of Property Rights in the Context of Past Theft, Arizona Law Review (2009)
In many states, past property theft is a volatile political issue that threatens to destabilize...
Plowing the Way Forward: How Transitional States Can Deal with past Property Dispossession, Work in Progress (2009)
From Reparation to Restoration: Moving Beyond Restoring Property Rights to Restoring Political and Economic Visibility, SMU Law Review (2007)
Abstract: How does a democratic state legitimize strong property rights when property arrangements are widely...
Land Titling: A Mode of Privatization with the Potential to Deepen Democracy, Saint Louis University Law Journal (2006)
Land titling is a form of privatization in that public assets are transferred to private...
Legal Title to Land as an Intervention Against Urban Poverty in Developing Nations, George Washington International Law Review (2004)
One intervention intended to ameliorate poverty and its subsidiary effects is the distribution of legal...
Contributions to Books