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Aaron Schwabach

Aaron Schwabach

Professor of Law
Director of STEPPS

Phone
(619) 525-1685
Department
Faculty
CV

Biography

Aaron Schwabach teaches Professional Responsibility. His scholarship addresses a range of topics including intellectual property, international and domestic environmental law, and the inheritance laws of the European Union, as well as other topics ranging from the law of war to the life and complex legal and cultural legacy of Thomas Jefferson. He is also an expert on the law of the wizarding world of Harry Potter, which somewhat to his surprise has earned him invitations to speak not only across the United States but in the United Kingdom, China, and Poland.

Professor Schwabach is a member of the bars of California and Florida. After graduating from Berkeley Law, Professor Schwabach worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer, before beginning his teaching career at the University of Miami School of Law.  Before joining the CWSL faculty he also practiced in Miami and taught at Gonzaga University School of Law in Spokane, Washington, at Thomas Jefferson School of Law here in San Diego, and most recently at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law.  He has also ventured farther afield, teaching as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at Zhejiang University’s Guanghua Law School in Hangzhou, China, as well as teaching short courses at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis in Nice, France and the University of Debrecen in Debrecen, Hungary.

Professor Schwabach has worked with the American Bar Association’s Central and Eastern European Law Initiative and Rule of Law Initiative to strengthen the development of the rule of law across the world.  He is the past editor of two of the themes in UNESCO’s Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (“Law” and “The Role of International Law and Institutions”) and a current member of the editorial board of the Hungarian Yearbook of International Law and European Law.

  • JD, Berkeley Law, University of California, Berkeley, California  
  • PhD, in Law, University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom 
  • BA, in Political Science, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio 

  • Professional Responsibility

Articles (2015-Present)

  • Fan Works and the Elusive Border between Derivative and Transformative Uses: A Fanfic Law Retrospective and an Optimistic Look Forward, 57 Loyola Los Angeles L. Rev. 385 (2024).
  • Innate Property: The Danger of Incongruency between Law and the Biological and Behavioral 
    Roots of Property and Possessiveness, 2022 Cardozo Law Review de•novo 189 (2022). 
  • Fan Works and the Environmental Law of Copyright, 24 Tulane J.Tech & Intell. Prop. 141 
    (2022).
  • A Hole in the Bottom of the Sea: Does the UNCLOS Part XI Regulatory Framework for Deep 
    Seabed Mining Provide Adequate Protection against Strip-Mining the Ocean Floor? 39 Va. 
    Envtl. L.J. 39 (2022).
  • Bringing the News from Ghent to Axanar: Fan Works and Copyright after Deckmyn and 
    Subsequent Developments, 22 Texas Rev. Entertainment and Sports L. 37 (2021).
  • The Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library: Is There an Emergency Fair Use 
    Superpower?, 18 Northwestern J. Technology & Intellectual Property 187 (2021).
  • Convergence and Divergence: The Treatment of Certain Aspects of Real Property under the Civil Codes of Qatar and California, 2015 International Rev. of L. 7 (2015).

Books

  • Internet and the Law: Technology, Society, and Compromises, 2nd Edition (ABC-CLIO 2014). 
  • Fan Fiction and Copyright: Outsider Works and Intellectual Property Protection (Ashgate 
    Publishing 2011). 
  • Intellectual Property: A Reference Handbook (ABC-CLIO 2007). 
  • Internet and the Law: Technology, Society, and Compromises (ABC-CLIO 2005). 
  • International Environmental Disputes: A Reference Handbook (ABC-CLIO 2005). 

Book Chapters

  • “Legal Issues in Online Fan Fiction,” in The Routledge Companion on Media Education, 
    Copyright and Fair Use (Renee Hobbs ed., Routledge 2018). 
  • “Fan Works and the Law,” in New Directions in Popular Fiction (Ken Gelder ed., Palgrave 
    Macmillan 2017). 
  • “Harry Potter and the Unforgivable Curses,” in The Law & Harry Potter 67 (Jeffrey Thomas and Franklin Snyder eds.; Carolina Academic Press 2010).
  • “Zeran v. America Online and the Development of Trolling Culture,” in Zeran v. America 
    Online 63 (Eric Goldman and Jeff Kosseff eds., SCU 2020) (previously published online; see 
    Other Works below).