Stephen J. Schnably

Professor of Law

J.D. 1981, Harvard Law School
A.B. 1976, Harvard College

Phone: (305)284-4817

Office: G472

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Stephen J. Schnably is Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law. He received an A.B. cum laude from Harvard College in 1976 and a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1981, where he served as Notes Editor of the Harvard Law Review. Following graduation, Professor Schnably served as law clerk to Judge Leonard I. Garth of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and studied at University College, Oxford, on a Knox Fellowship.

Prior to joining the Miami Law faculty in 1988, he was an attorney with the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale), engaged primarily in domestic and international litigation practice and in international arbitration.

Professor Schnably regularly teaches Property, Constitutional Law, and a Seminar on the Criminalization of Homelessness, and has taught International Human Rights Law, Comparative Constitutional Law, and International Law as well. His scholarship focuses on homelessness and the law, international human rights law, and transnational constitutional law.

Professor Schnably has been a cooperating attorney with the ACLU for three decades in matters related to the criminalization of homelessness. He was co-counsel for Plaintiffs in Pottinger v. City of Miami from 1994 to 2020. The Pottinger consent decree, approved by the federal district court in 1998, modified in 2014, and terminated in 2019, has been hailed as “the gold standard” in civil rights litigation to protect the constitutional rights of individuals experiencing homelessness. Through his work with the ACLU, Southern Legal Counsel, Legal Services of Greater Miami, and Miami Law’s Human Rights Clinic, Professor Schnably has also been involved in challenges to other measures criminalizing homelessness, including anti-food sharing ordinances and panhandling bans. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Miami Coalition to Advance Racial Equity (MCARE), which seeks to end criminalization of homelessness as a matter of racial justice. He has also testified as an expert witness in state and federal court on international human rights law, served as a consultant to public defenders’ offices on international human rights law and juvenile justice, and represented petitioners before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Professor Schnably served as Acting Dean of the Law School in July-August 2021, and as Associate Dean from 2000-2005.

Publications

Regulating Cleanups of Homeless Encampments, 75 Symposium: Addressing the Criminalization of Poverty and Marginalization University of Miami Law Review Caveat 8-33 (2020).

The Transformation of Human Rights Litigation: The Alien Tort Statute, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and JASTA, 24 University of Miami International & Comparative Law Review 285 (2017).

Going Rogue: Stop the Beach Renourishment as an Object of Morbid Fascination, with Mary Doyle, 64 Hastings L.J. 83 (2012).

Comment: The Lessons of International Human Rights Law for the Protection of Foreign Investors, 42 U. Miami Int.-Am. L. Rev. 275 (2011).

Emerging International Law Constraints on Constitutional Structure and Revision: A Preliminary Appraisal, 62 U. Miami L. Rev. 417 (2008).

The OAS and Constitutionalism: Lessons from Recent West African Experience, 33 Syracuse J. Int'l Law & Commerce 263 (2005).

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW & PRACTICE: CASES, TREATIES AND MATERIALS (2004).

Constitutionalism and Democratic Government in the Inter-American System, 155-98 Democratic Governance and International Law (2000).

Integrating International Law Into the First-Year Property Course, 93 AM. SOC'Y INT'L L. PROC. 359 (1999).

Alejandre v. Republic of Cuba [Cuban Liability For Shooting Down Civil Aircraft], 92 AM. J. INT'L L. 768-773 (1998).

International Human Rights Law & Practice: Cases, Treaties & Materials (1997).

Rights of Access and the Right to Exclude: The Case of Homelessness, Property Law on the Threshold of the 21st Century 553-72 (1996).

The Santiago Commitment as a Call to Democracy in the United States: Evaluating the OAS Role in Haiti, Peru, and Guatemala, U. Miami Int-Am. L. Rev. 393 (1994).

The Santiago Commitment and the New World Order, SISTEMA INTER-AMERICANO PARA LA PROTECCIÓN DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS: APORTES PARA UNA EVALUACIÓN 248-263 (1994).

The First ICSID Conciliation: Tesoro Petroleum Corporation v. Trinidad and Tobago, ICSID REPORTS (1994).

The Judicial Process in Context,, TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IN LATIN AMERICA: THE ROLE OF THE JUDICIARY (1993).

Property and Pragmatism: A Critique of Radin’s Theory of Property and Personhood, 45 Stanford Law Review 347 (1993).

Beyond Griswold: Foucauldian and Republican Approaches to Privacy, 23 Connecticut Law Review 861 (1991).

The First ICSID Conciliation: Tesoro Petroleum Corporation v. Trinidad and Tobago, with Lester Nurick, 1 ICSID Review: Foreign Investment L.J. 340 (1986).

Normative Judgment, Social Change, and Legal Reasoning in the Context of Abortion and Privacy,, 13 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 715 (1985).

Federal Courts’ Supervisory Powers to Exclude Evidence Unlawfully Seized from Third Parties: United States v. Payner, 94 Harvard Law Review 187 (1980).

Defendant Class Actions, 91 Harvard Law Review 630 (1978).