The American Society of International Law (ASIL) selected a new book co-authored by Professor Derek Jinks for its 2014 Certificate of Merit for a Preeminent Contribution to Creative Scholarship award. The award is one of three given annually to international law books by the ASIL, a scholarly society.
“Socializing States: Promoting Human Rights through International Law” written by Jinks and Professor Ryan Goodman of the NYU School of Law was published in 2013 by Oxford University Press. It provides a new theory of how international law influences states. In developing this theory, according to the book’s publisher, it brings to bear a broad range of interdisciplinary materials — including, most importantly, sociological studies of globalization.
“The theoretical complexity and methodological rigor of ‘Socializing States’ make this a book that should be studied by any scholar interested in promotion of human rights, the spread of global norms, regime design or compliance,” wrote the ASIL’s book awards committee. “It has already changed scholarship in these areas and will certainly continue to influence the field in the years to come.”
The ASIL book awards will be presented April 11 in Washington, D.C.
Jack Goldsmith, professor at Harvard Law School, has called the new book “the most important and consequential book on international law in many years.”
Jinks is the Marrs McLean Professor in Law and a senior fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at UT. The ASIL, a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational membership organization more than a century old, fosters the study of international law and promotes the establishment and maintenance of international relations on the basis of law and justice.