Professor Christopher L. Blakesley is a Barrick Distinguished Scholar, 2009, and he holds The Cobeaga Law Firm Professorship at the UNLV Boyd School of Law. Professor Blakesley joined the Boyd School of Law faculty in 2002. Prior to his arrival here, he held the J.Y. Sanders Chair of International & Comparative Law at the Louisiana State University Law Center. He is the J.Y. Sanders Professor Emeritus at Louisiana State University. He has been elected to the prestigious American Law Institute. In addition to UNLV, he has been tenured at LSU, then at the University of Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, where he taught from 1981-1986, then back to LSU, until 2002.

He received his J.D. from the University of Utah, Master of Laws and his Doctorate (Doctor of the Science of Law) from Columbia University, where he did his doctoral dissertation under the tutelage of Professors Roger Pinto and Georges Levasseur (at La Sorbonne, Paris I, Le Panthéon) and under Professors Oscar Schachter and Oliver Lissitzyn at Columbia University. He also received his M.A. in International Law & Diplomacy, from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and his B.A. from the University of Utah.

His prior legal practice was in the Office of the Legal Adviser to the U.S. Department of State under Dr. Henry Kissinger on matters of international criminal law, including counter-terrorism, extradition, and mutual assistance in criminal matters. He has written one hundred or more scholarly articles, in English and in French in U.S. and foreign scholarly journals. He has written ten books or fourteen, if one counts each volume of a four volume set. His books include: Terrorism And Anti-terrorism: A Normative And Practical Assessment (2006); Global Issues In Criminal Procedure (co-authored, Thomson West, 2012); Global Issues In Criminal Law (co-authored, Thomson West, 2007); The International Legal System: Cases and Materials (co-authored, Foundation Press 5th Ed. 2001 and earlier editions); Terrorism, Drugs, International Law And The Protection Of Human Liberty (1992) (Part of the Innovations In International Law Series, Developed And Run by Richard Falk, Princeton University, who invited Professor Blakesley to write the book); Louisiana And Comparative Family Law (a treatise, 1997); Contemporary Family Law (co-authored four volume treatise of family law throughout the United States, 1988). His work has been cited by state supreme courts, federal courts and many of the most renowned scholars in these fields. It has also been cited in most major law reviews and in the treatises of some of the most eminent legal scholars.

He teaches, among other courses: International Law, Comparative Law, Comparative Criminal Law, International Criminal Law, International Humanitarian Law, International Human Rights Law, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Family Law, and Terrorism-Counter-Terrorism.  

He has also taught in Budapest, Hungary, Salzburg and Innsbruck, Austria, Amsterdam, Paris and Aix-en-Provence, France. He was invited to teach a two month courses in French at the Université de Lausanne, & the Université de Genève, Switzerland, and at Poitiers, France. He is on the Board of Editors of the American Journal of Comparative Law. He was elected as one of five Secrétairs Généraux Adjoints & to the Board of Directors of the Association Internationale de Droit Pénal, Paris. He is on the Board of Editors (Conseil de Rédacteurs), Revue International de Droit PÉNAL, France, and to the Board of foreign Contributors to the La Revue Pénitentiaire et de Droit Pénal, Paris, France. He was elected to the Board of Advisors, International Human Rights Law Institute and to the Board of Advisors, International Criminal Justice & Weapons Control Center.