The Rule of Law Under Pressure: A Transnational Challenge - A Conversation with Professor Gregory Shaffer

The goal of the rule of law is to protect individuals from the arbitrary exercise of power. Democracy and human rights depend on the rule of law. But today the rule of law is under growing threat in the United States and around the world. Trends regarding rule-of-law protections are transnational in scope. They involve shifting norms, institutions, and practices at the local, national, and international levels. This talk will assess how challenges are taking place at the international and national levels, and how these challenges are linked. It examines the ways in which international law and institutions are important for rule-of-law ends, as well as their pathologies, since power also is exercised beyond the state in an interconnected world. Sustaining the rule of law is a never-ending struggle, one that current challenges make particularly daunting.

Gregory Shaffer is Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of International Law at Georgetown University Law Center and is the immediate past President of the American Society of International Law. The author of twelve books, including his newest book The Rule of Law under Pressure: A Transnational Challenge. His book Emerging Powers and the World Trade System: The Past and Future of International Economic Law won the 2022 Chadwick F. Alger Prize of the International Studies Association for the best book on international organizations.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Transnational Legal Studies, the American Society of International Law, and the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law.

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