News

Alter Awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship

4/8/2011

Karen J. Alter has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in social sciences. Although Alter is a political scientist, the fellowship was awarded in the field of law, to complete her book manuscript: The New Terrain of International Law: International Courts in Global Politics. The book provides a new framework for comparing and understanding the influence of the twenty-five existing international courts, and for thinking about how different domains of domestic and international politics are transformed through the creation of international courts.

Alter is a longstanding Buffett Center affiliate and the co-director of its International Organizations & International Law (IO/IL) Working Group. The interdisciplinary working group brings together faculty, graduate students and visitors from across the university. Reaching out to the wider region, the working group will be co-hosting the second regional colloquium on Globalization of Law, International Organizations and International Law to be held at the University of Chicago Law School May 6-7. Alter notes that "I have been working at the intersections of law and political science for many years now. In reaching across the disciplines, the working group has connected me to debates in sociology about the importance of lawyers and networks as part of the larger political infrastructure of law. This interaction has definitely shaped my thinking in profound ways. ♦