Guive Mirfendereski
Born in 1952 to an Iranian career diplomat, Guive Mirfendereski spent his childhood in The Netherlands, India and Turkey, and his adolescent years in Iran and Switzerland, with frequent prolonged visits to the USSR between 1967 and 1971. A graduate of Don Bosco College (Andisheh) in Tehran, Villa St. Jean (Fribourg, Switzerland), and Collège du Léman (Versoix, Switzerland), he began his university studies at Georgetown University in 1971 and graduated cum laude in 1975 with a bachelor of art degree in Government form the College of Arts and Sciences.
Mirfendereski attended The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, where he received an M.A. (1976) and M.A.L.D. (1978) and a Ph.D. (1985). Subsequently, he studied law at Boston College Law School, where he received his J.D. in 1988. His legal career as an associate in the corporate department of Gaston, Snow, Ely & Bartlett in Boston, Massachusetts (1988-1991), included representation of corporate clients in matters pertaining to customs and international trade and investment. Between 1992 and 1994, he served as legal consultant to the governments of Rwanda and
Sierra Leone on their World Bank-sponsored projects, before becoming general counsel to a biotech company in Watertown, Massachusetts.
As an adjunct professor, he developed and taught graduate-level courses at The Fletcher School and at The Lemberg Program at Brandeis University, as well as holding undergraduate teaching positions at Brandeis’s Legal Studies Program, while continuing in private practice of law in Newton, Massachusetts, where he resides.
Mirfendereski’s major publications include: The Privileged American: The U.S. Capitulations in Iran, 1856-1979 (Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, 2014); A Diplomatic History of the Caspian Sea, Treaties, Diaries and Other Stories (New York & London: St. Martin’s Press/McMillan/ Palgrave, 2001); “Caspian Sea,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History (Oxford University Press, 2007); “Persian Gulf” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History (2007); “Abu Musa iii,” in Encyclopædia Iranica (New York: Columbia University Center for Iranian Studies) online edition at https://iranicaonline.org/articles/abu-musa-bu-musa (2006); “Tonb islands,” in Encyclopædia Iranica online edition at https://iranicaonline.org/articles/tonb (2005); “Caspian Sea ii. Diplomatic History in Modern Times,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica online edition at https://iranicaonline.org/articles/caspian-sea-ii-diplomatic-history-in-moderntimes (2004); “The Toponymy of the Tonb Islands,” in Iranian Studies, Vol. 29, Nos. 3- 4 (Summer/Fall, 1996); “The Status of Counterclaims under International Law, with Particular Reference to International Arbitration involving a Private Party and a Foreign State,” in 15 Denver Journal of International Law & Policy 11 (1986) (co-authored with Bradley Larschan); “An International Law of Weather Modification,” in Fletcher Forum: A Journal of Studies in International Affairs (Medford, Massachusetts: The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy), Vol. 2, No. 1 (January 1978).