Transnational Legal and Political Theory

Presentation abstracts are provided by the authors for review, compiled into a pdf.

Mekonnen Ayano, Associate Professor, University at Buffalo School of Law

Research Focus: Property Law, Immigration Law, Natural Resources, Energy Law, Human Rights, Globalization & Legal Profession, Law & Development

Paul Schiff Berman, the Walter S. Cox Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School, is one of the world’s foremost theorists on the interactions among legal systems. He is the author of over sixty scholarly works, including Global Legal Pluralism: A Jurisprudence of Law Beyond Borders, published by Cambridge University Press in 2012 and the Oxford Handbook of Global Legal Pluralism, published by Oxford University Press in 2020. He was also among the first legal scholars to focus on legal issues regarding online activity, and he is co-author of one of the leading casebooks in the field. 

Guyora Binder was formerly law clerk to federal Judge Jack B. Weinstein, Dana Fellow of Comparative Jurisprudence at UCLA, a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Georgetown University, Vanderbilt University and Cornell Law Schools and the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor of Human Rights at Stanford Law School.  He was formerly Vice Dean for Research and Faculty Development and Chair of the President’s Review Board. Binder has written in the areas of criminal law, law and literature, critical legal theory, constitutional history, and international law. 

Sandrine Brachotte is a Guest Lecturer in Legal Theory at UCL (Saint-Louis Campus, Brussels), and co-organiser of the UCL Research group 'Migrations and Decolonial Approaches to Law' with Prof. Sylvie Sarolea, which builds a collective decolonial project about law and migration in Europe. She holds a PhD in Law from Sciences Po Law School, which is being turned into a book entitled 'Conflicts worldviews and private international law'. She is also co-chair of the bibliography section of the Revue critique de droit international privé. 

(Participating online.)

Sergio Dellavalle is Professor of Public Law and State Theory at The University of Turin (Italy), Department of Law, and Senior Research Affiliate at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg (Germany), and Visiting Fellow at St. Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge (UK). He has been Visiting Fellow at: the Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University, and at the Washington and Lee University (VA);  the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law of the University of Cambridge;  Rutgers University, School of Law (NJ); and, at Durham University, School of Law. He has also been Visiting Professor at the Universities of Frankfurt, Heidelberg and Tübingen (Germany), as well as the National University of Singapore and at the Centre for Transnational Legal Studies (London). He has extensively published in the fields of political and legal philosophy, as well as of international and constitutional law theory. Amongst his most recent publications: Paradigms of Social Order (Palgrave Macmillan 2021); ‘Addressing Diversity in Post-unitary Theories of Order’, 40 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (2020). Professor Dellavalle is presently writing a book with the title "A Republic of Fellow Sufferers: How to Grant Rights to Nature".

(Participating online.)

Pavlos Eleftheriadis, Professor of Legal Studies at NYU Abu Dhabi and Affiliated Professor at NYU School of Law

Eleftheriadis teaches and researches in the philosophy of law and in public law. Before joining NYU he was a Professor of Public Law at the University of Oxford. Research interests are in ethical theories of law, in comparative jurisprudence and in climate justice. He is a Senior Research Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford. His book Legal Rights (Oxford University Press, 2008) offers a theory of legal rights within the framework of an ethical theory of law grounded in justice and legitimacy. He presents a general theory of EU law as transnational law in his book A Union of Peoples: Europe as a Community of Principle (Oxford University Press, 2020). He is co-editor (with Julie Dickson) of the collection of essays The Philosophical Foundations of European Union Law (Oxford University Press, 2012). Eleftheriadis is a barrister in England and Wales and practises before the English and European courts in public law, human rights and EU law from Francis Taylor Building in London. He writes on constitutional, legal and general European political issues for the press. His articles have been published by the Financial Times, Politico, Project Syndicate, the Wall Street Journal, the Telegraph, and the Greek newspaper 'To Vima', and, the legal blog 'Verfassungsblog'.

Jorge Luis Fabra-Zamora, Associate Professor, University at Buffalo School of Law

Jorge Fabra-Zamora’s research and teaching interests focus on legal and political philosophy, torts, and international human rights. His current project develops a unified theory capable of different forms of state, indigenous, customary, international, transnational, supra-national, and global law. His work also explores the problems of state liability at the intersection between torts, administrative law, human rights, and political philosophy. His academic work in these areas has appeared (or will soon be published) in McGill Law Review, the Canadian Journal of Law and Society, Transnational Legal Theory, and some leading Latin American reviews. Fabra-Zamora is also the editor of several academic volumes, including one about Colombia’s innovative peace process with FARC (Routledge, 2021), one volume about jurisprudence’s transformation in globalization (Elgar, 2020), and a multi-volume encyclopedia of legal philosophy in Spanish (UNAM, 2015).

Luigi Ferrajoli, Professore Emerito, Departamento di Guirisprudenza, Università degli studi Roma Tre

Luigi Ferrajoli (Florence, Italy – 1940) is a judge and philosopher. Between 1970 and 2003 he was a professor at the Università degli Studi di Camerino, teaching Philosophy of Law and General Theory of Law. During those years, he held, among other positions, that of Director of the Institute of Historical, Legal, Philosophical and Political Studies. From 2003 on, he has taught at Universtà Roma Tre, where he is currently Professor Emeritus of Philosophy of Law. He is also Doctor Honoris Causa in several universities. His most important works include Per una Constituzione della Terra. L’umanità al bivio (2022), La construzione della democracia. Teoria del garantismo costituzionale (2021), Manifesto per l’uguaglianza (2018), Constituzionalismo oltre lo Stato (2017), Potere Selvaggi. La crisi della democracia italiana (2011), and Principia iuris. Teoria del diritto e della democracia (3 volumes, 2007).

(Participating in publication.)

Evan Fox-Decent, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Cosmopolitan Law and Justice McGill University Faculty of Law

Evan Fox-Decent teaches and publishes in legal theory, political theory, private law, public law, and international law. He was named Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Cosmopolitan Law and Justice in October 2019. In 2012, Professor Fox-Decent's book, Sovereignty’s Promise: The State as Fiduciary, was shortlisted by the Canadian Political Science Association for its tenth C.B. Macpherson Prize for best book published in English or French related to political theory. In 2016, he published a monograph with Evan J. Criddle on Fiduciaries of Humanity: How International Law Constitutes Authority (OUP, 2016), and in 2018, he co-edited a book on Fiduciary Government (CUP, 2018).

(Participating online.)

Aravind Ganesh, Lecturer at the School of Law, University of Sussex

My research explores the implications of \Kant's philosophy of right for issues of contemporary relevance in various areas of public law. My main interests right now revolve around environmental law and the regulation of 'public goods'. My book, 'Rightful Relations with Distant Strangers: Kant, the EU, and the Wider World', (see below) was published in March 2021 by Hart/Bloomsbury Publishing. My monograph is based on my PhD thesis, which was awarded the 2020 René Cassin Thesis Prize (English section).

James A. Gardner, SUNY Distinguished Professor; Bridget and Thomas Black Professor, University at Buffalo School of Law

A member of the law faculty since 2001, James A Gardner is a highly regarded specialist in constitutional and election law. He is a prolific scholar who has published six books and more than 60 articles and book chapters. According to Election Law Blog and Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports, Gardner is the 8th most frequently cited scholar in the field of election law. Gardner’s books include Comparative Election Law (Edward Elgar Publishing: 2022), Election Law in the American Political System (Aspen : 2020), What Are Campaigns For? The Role of Persuasion in Electoral Law and Politics (Oxford University Press) and Legal Argument: The Structure and Language of Effective Advocacy (Carolina Academic Press).  His articles have appeared in Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Texas Law Review, International Journal of Constitutional Law, American Journal of Comparative Law, and many other venues.

Michael Guidice, Philosophy Professor, York University, Canada

I joined the Department of Philosophy at York in 2005. I teach courses at all levels in legal, political, and moral philosophy, and my research interests cover a range of topics, including general jurisprudence and methodology, constitutional law, legal pluralism, state-indigenous relations, and international law. 

Research Interests: Law and Justice, Philosophy of Law, Political Philosophy, Moral Philosophy

David Lefkovitz, Professor of Philosophy and Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Law (PPEL), Richmond School of Arts and Sciences

David Lefkowitz specializes in legal and political philosophy. Among the courses he teaches on a semi-regular basis are Philosophy of Law, Ethics and International Affairs, Philosophical Problems in Law and Society (with a focus on criminal law) and, for the PPEL Program, Theory and Public Policy (with a focus on climate change) and the PPEL Capstone (with a focus on normative theory and international law).

Rresearch interests:  (1) the morality of obedience and disobedience to law (e.g. the basis, if any, of a moral duty to obey the law, the moral justifiability of civil disobedience, the just treatment of conscientious objectors); (2) analytical and normative issues in international law (e.g. the nature of customary international law, the legitimacy of international law, the existence (or not) of an international rule of law and its implications); and (3) substantive moral questions in the conduct of international affairs (e.g. the morality of secession, the just conduct of war).

John Linarelli, Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh

John Linarelli is a member of the University of Pittsburgh Center for International Legal Education. His research is in comparative and transnational commercial law, contract law and theory, and international economic law. Professor Linarelli is co-editor of the book series, Hart Studies in Commercial and Financial Law, published by Hart/Bloomsbury. He is co-author, along with Margot Salomon and M Sornarajah, of The Misery of International Law: Confrontations with Injustice in the Global Economy, published by Oxford University Press, which won the European Society of International Law book prize for 2019. He has served in senior faculty positions on both sides of the Atlantic. He is formerly Professor of Commercial Law at Durham University in the United Kingdom. Linarelli is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the European Law Institute. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of California Riverside, where he was a Dean’s Fellow, and a PhD in Law from King’s College London.

Paul Linden-Retek, Associate Professor of Law; Co-director of the Buffalo Human Rights Center, University at Buffalo School of Law

Linden-Retek writes and teaches in the areas of constitutional law, international human rights, and critical legal theory, with an emphasis on comparative constitutional law, constitutional theory, European Union law, and refugee and asylum law. His work in these fields has been published in the International Journal of Constitutional Law; Jurisprudence; Global Constitutionalism; the Columbia Journal of European Law; the German Law Journal; Law, Culture, and the Humanities; and the Yale Journal of International Law; and his public writing has appeared in the Boston Review. He is the author of Postnational Constitutionalism: Europe and the Time of Law (Oxford University Press 2023), which reimagines the form and emancipatory aspirations of constitutional law in the project of European integration. His current research examines the externalization of border control policy by the Global North and its implications not only for the protection of individual human rights but also for the legitimacy of state power and international legal order. 

Cormac Mac Amhlaigh, Professor of Public Law, University of Edinburgh 

My research interests lie in the conceptual and theoretical dimensions of law and legitimacy.  I am also interested in whether and how new forms of law and governance, particularly beyond the state, challenge paradigms of law and legitimacy and the potential role public law can play in this context. I also write about contemporary issues in Scottish, British and European constitutional law including human rights law.

Nicole Roughan, Associate Professor, University of Aukland 

Nicole joined the Law Faculty in 2018, having previously held appointments at the National University of Singapore, the University of Cambridge, Trinity College, Cambridge, the University of Kent at Brussels, and Victoria University of Wellington. She is currently a Visiting Professor in the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London. Nicole's research and teaching interests lie in the philosophy of law, with a particular interest in relationships between legal orders. Her book publications include a monograph, 'Authorities: Conflicts, Cooperation, and Transnational Legal Theory' published by Oxford University Press in 2013. a co-edited volume (with Andrew Halpin) 'In Pursuit of Pluralist Jurisprudence' published by Cambridge University Press in 2017; Nicole is currently working on new book projects on 'Officials'; and 'Authority and Sovereignty beyond the State.' Nicole has also published a number of commissioned book chapters on topics in legal and political philosophy, and her articles appear in leading international and NZ law journals. Nicole is a graduate of the University of Auckland, Victoria University of Wellington, and the Yale Law School.

Thomas Schultz, Associate Director of the Centre for International Governance and Dispute Resolution (CIGAD) and Professor of Law at The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London.

Schultz works in the fields of arbitration, transnational commercial law, and legal theory. His main current projects are interdisciplinary studies of international arbitration (law and political science, law and literature, law and philosophy) dealing with legitimacy issues in arbitration, the conditions of production of arbitration scholarship and other knowledge about arbitration, dispute settlement and justice values in arbitration, the mechanics of arbitration's resistance to wider social influence, and factors of arbitrator decision-making. He is also completing a long-term doctrinal study of the role of the principle of comity in private and public international law. Schultz is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Dispute Settlement, and an editorial board member of four further journals and books series on arbitration, international law, transnational law, and legal philosophy. His work has been awarded the Jubilee Prize of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Craig Scott, Professor & Associate Dean (Academic), Osgoode Hall Law School

Scott’s teaching and research have been primarily in the fields of public international law and private international law, with a focus on the place of international human rights law in both of these fields. His most recent work draws on all three of these fields, including in the areas of human rights torts across borders, transnational corporate accountability and transitional justice.  He has also written on constitutional rights protection in Canada and abroad. Much of his work has been on the theory and doctrine of economic, social and cultural rights. His work and teaching is strongly influenced by his interests in legal theory and in policy responses to globalization. He is series editor of Hart Monographs in Transnational and International Law, and is Founding Editor of Transnational Legal Theory.