Today’s blog interview is a guest post by Scholar-in-Residence in the Global Legal Research Directorate at the Law Library of Congress, Dr. Klara Polackova Van der Ploeg.
Describe your background.
I grew up in Prague, in what is now the Czech Republic, and as a child I lived through the Velvet Revolution and its aftermath. My childhood was very much filled with music, arts, and literature, but experiencing such a profound political and social transformation at an early age made me acutely aware both of the ways law and legal institutions shape people’s lives and of their limits.
What is your academic/professional history?
I received my legal education in Brno, Czech Republic, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Geneva, Switzerland. I studied law and political science/international relations at Masaryk University in Brno, where I completed my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. My first sustained encounter with the U.S. legal system came at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, where I earned an LL.M. as a Michigan Grotius Fellow. Later on, I went on to the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, where I completed a Ph.D. in international law with highest distinction (summa cum laude avec les félicitations du jury).
I am also a dual-qualified attorney-at-law (state of New York and the Czech Republic). I have advised states and private parties on a wide range of public international law and international dispute settlement matters, served as a judicial assistant to Judge Sir Christopher Greenwood at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and practiced public international law for several years with leading global law firms in the city of London and in Prague.
After this period of full-time practice, I moved into academia. I have held a faculty appointment at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom and am now an associate professor at Stetson University College of Law, the oldest law school in Florida. Along the way, I held visiting research fellowships at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge, the British Institute for International and Comparative Law in London, and the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context at Queen Mary University of London. Today, my teaching and research draw heavily on this combination of international academic and practice experience—tracing a path that has taken me from Prague and Brno to Ann Arbor, The Hague, London, Geneva, Nottingham, and now to Florida and Washington D.C.
How do you describe your job to other people?
My field is international law, which I research, teach, and practice. As a teacher, I work with students to understand what international law is and how it operates in the world: how it enables, constrains, or justifies particular courses of action, and what this reveals about power, authority, and accountability.
As a researcher, I spend a lot of time reading, writing, and thinking about how international law has evolved from an interstate legal order focused primarily on relations between sovereign states to a more complex, pluralistic field. I am particularly interested in how international law has progressively brought other entities—such as corporations, armed groups, political opposition groups, and indigenous communities—within its purview, including as addressees of its rules, and what this expansion means for international law as both a legal system and a regulatory tool.
As a practitioner, I have advised states and private parties in international disputes and on questions of public international law. Seeing how legal arguments are developed, tested, and received by different institutions and actors continues to inform both my teaching and my research. The three roles reinforce each other: questions that arise in the classroom or in advisory work often lead to new research projects, and my scholarly work, in turn, shapes the insights I can offer to students and clients.
Why did you want to work at the Library of Congress?
I was drawn to the Law Library of Congress because of its vast resources on international and foreign law and the chance to work closely with its foreign law specialists and reference librarians. The ability to readily consult such a wide range of foreign, international, and historical legal materials in one place is extraordinary, and the prospect of deepening the comparative dimensions of my research through engagement with the library staff was a major part of the appeal.
The experience has exceeded my expectations in every way. I have been deeply impressed not only by the breadth and depth of the Law Library’s holdings, but also by the librarians’ expertise and their commitment to research. They are remarkable producers, guardians, and facilitators of legal knowledge.
On a more personal note, every time I walk from Union Station past Congress and the Supreme Court to the Jefferson and Madison Buildings, I am reminded of what an inspiring place it is to think about law and what a privilege it is to be here.
What is the most interesting fact that you’ve learned about the Library?
I did not realize that a federal statute, enacted in 1888 and now codified at 2 U.S.C. § 138, requires the Law Library to remain open every day so long as either House of Congress is in session. So whenever Congress is meeting—day or night—there will be law librarians on site, ready to assist with any query. I think this says a great deal about the important role the Library—and the Law Library in particular—plays in supporting the work of the legislative branch.
I was also fascinated to discover the network of underground tunnels connecting the Library of Congress buildings. It feels like a hidden physical map of how the institution functions: materials, people, and ideas moving behind the scenes to make knowledge available and accessible to legislators, the government, researchers, and the public.
What’s something that most of your co-workers don’t know about you?
Most of my co-workers probably don’t know how often I think back to the places my career has taken me and the extraordinary, inspiring, generous people I have been fortunate to meet and work with. I draw on those encounters far more than they might realize.
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