A Law Professor’s Unique Sabbatical

A. Peter Mutharika is a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. He is currently on sabbatical in his native Malawi. There he is serving as the chief adviser to the president on constitutional, legal, and international affairs. The president of Malawi is Bingu wa Mutharika, the professor’s brother. Professor Mutharika reports that “the main issues facing Malawi are issues of food security, which we have now accomplished, better health for our people, better opportunities for education, infrastructural development and better access to clean water by more people.”

Professor Mutharika is the author of the forthcoming book, Foreign Investment Security in Sub-Saharan Africa (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2008). When he returns to Washington University this coming fall, he will become Charles Nagel Professor of International and Comparative Law. Nagel, an 1885 graduate of the Washington University School of Law, served in the Missouri House of Representatives and as secretary of commerce under President William Howard Taft.