Former Chittagong University professor Shah Alam dies

M Shah Alam
UNB

M Shah Alam, former professor of Chittagong University and former member of the Bangladesh Law Commission, died on Monday, reports UNB.

He has long been suffering from old age complications and breathed his last at a city hospital around 10:45pm, said professor ABM Abu Noman, dean of law faculty at Chittagong University.

Shah Alam received his secondary and higher secondary education at a local high school and Rajshahi Cadet college, and passed SSC and HSC examinations with distinction in 1968 and 1970 respectively.

He briefly studied economics in the University of Dhaka when Bangladesh War of Liberation started, in which he participated actively.

In 1992 he joined Chittagong University as an associate professor and as the founder dean of the reorganised law faculty and founder chairman of the law department.

After the liberation, he went to the former USSR on scholarship for higher studies. He studied there for ten years in Moscow People's Friendship University, obtaining graduation, post-graduation and PhD degrees in law specialising in international law.

Upon completion of higher studies, Shah Alam joined the law faculty of Rajshahi University as an assistant professor, where he served for ten years.

In 1992 he joined Chittagong University as an associate professor and as the founder dean of the reorganised law faculty and founder chairman of the law department.

One of the pioneers of clinical legal education in Bangladesh, he introduced this particular method of legal education in the Chittagong University.

In 1996 he became a full professor of law. During 1999-2000 he worked as a member of the Bangladesh Law Commission.

Alam has published four books on international law and constitutional law, and has edited for several years the Chittagong University Journal of Law.

He has a good number of publications in reputed research journals at home and abroad. He was a Japan Foundation Fellow in 1995-96 at the Tokyo University law faculty and a senior Fulbright Fellow in 2001-2002 at the New York University School of Law. Occasionally, Alam wrote for national dailies on current issues of law.