Ms. Bernadette Atuahene

Professor of Law

Chicago-Kent College of Law

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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; Trusts and Estates; 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), and in 2016 she was promoted to Research Professor.

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. Her most recent book, We Want What's Ours: Learning from South Africa's Land Restitution Program, is based on 150 interviews she conducted of program beneficiaries. She also directed and produced a documentary film about one South African family's struggle to reclaim their land. Professor Atuahene won the Law and Public Affairs Fellowship and was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Princeton University for the 2011–12 academic year. Most recently, she won a National Science Foundation Grant for her new book project about squatters in Detroit.