Faculty Books 2023: The Year in Review

Twilight Issues in International Arbitration
Wolters Kluwer, March 2023

Many largely unaddressed issues of arbitral practice are the subject of Twilight Issues in International Arbitration by George A. Bermann ’75 LL.M., Walter Gellhorn Professor of Law and Jean Monnet Professor of European Union Law. The “twilight” issues under consideration are the ones for which a tribunal finds little guidance in the parties’ arbitration agreement, the arbitration law of the seat, or even the procedural rules the parties may have adopted.

A Legacy of Discrimination: The Essential Constitutionality of Affirmative Action
Oxford University Press, February 2023

As the former president of the University of Michigan and, later, of Columbia University, Lee C. Bollinger ’71 is a longtime champion of affirmative action. The constitutional law scholar, now President Emeritus and Seth Low Professor of the University, and his co-author, Geoffrey R. Stone, analyze the developing case law on the controversial practice. They describe the positive impact of affirmative action for Black Americans and other underrepresented groups, as well as the history of policies dating back to Reconstruction and Jim Crow that made affirmative action necessary.

Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology
Oxford University Press, September 2023

In Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology, Anu Bradford, Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organization, lays out the three predominant frameworks for regulating technology: the American market-driven model, the Chinese state-driven model, and the European rights-driven model. She explores in detail the emerging battle between techno-democracies and techno-autocracies that will shape the global digital landscape—and the future of liberal democracy. Watch more.

#SayHerName: Black Women’s Stories of Police Violence and Public Silence
Haymarket Books, July 2023

In 2014, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, launched the #SayHerName campaign with the African American Policy Forum to give voice to Black girls and women targeted, brutalized, and killed by police. In #SayHerName: Black Women's Stories of Police Violence and Public Silence, Crenshaw shares the stories of Black women such as Breonna Taylor, Alberta Spruill, and Rekia Boyd who might otherwise remain invisible; she also provides an analytical framework for understanding Black women's susceptibility to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence. 

Cold Peace: Avoiding the New Cold War
Liveright, April 2023

A renowned scholar of global constitutionalism, international affairs, and democratic peace theory, University Professor Michael W. Doyle examines the specter of a new Cold War involving the trilateral axes of Russia, the United States, and China. Exacerbated by new weapons of cyber warfare and more insidious forms of propaganda, a new Cold War, he argues, would have catastrophic repercussions and thwart global collaboration efforts that are key to reversing climate change, preventing the next pandemic, and securing nuclear nonproliferation. But Doyle is not without hope, and Cold Peace offers accords and non-subversion pacts that may save the world.

Cooperation: A Political, Economic, and Social Theory
Columbia University Press, May 2023

Despite the divisiveness that threatens the stability of liberal democracies, people working together can extend the ideals of participatory democracy and sustainability into every aspect of their lives, according to Bernard E. Harcourt, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law. Citing examples such as consumer cooperatives, credit unions, and insurance mutuals, Harcourt identifies the most promising forms of cooperative initiatives and distills their lessons into Coöperism, an integrated framework of political, economic, and social theory.

Social Parenthood in Comparative Perspective
NYU Press, July 2023

Around the globe, children are being raised by “social parents,” who are not connected to them by biogenetics, marriage, or adoption and thus not recognized as parents in the eyes of the law. In Social Parenthood in Comparative Perspective, Professor of Law Clare Huntington ’96 and co-editors Christiane von Bary and Courtney G. Joslin have compiled essays—including “The Future of Social Parenthood,” which they wrote—that consider how the law does and how it should recognize social parents.

How to Save the World in Six (Not So Easy) Steps: Bringing Out the Best in Nonprofits
Post Hill Press, May 2023

David M. Schizer, Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law and Economics and Dean Emeritus, draws on his experience leading Columbia Law School and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), an international humanitarian organization, in How to Save the World in Six (Not So Easy) Steps. Drawing from his interviews with 27 nonprofit leaders (including several Law School alumni), Schizer provides a wealth of wisdom and practical advice, including his “Six Ps”—plan, persevere, prioritize, pivot, publicize, partner—for how nonprofits can come up with the right strategy and get buy-in from their stakeholders.

The End of Family Court: How Abolishing the Court Brings Justice to Children and Families
NYU Press, August 2023

As the co-founder of Columbia Law clinics focused on families and children and a former attorney in charge of The Legal Aid Society’s Juvenile Rights Division, Jane M. Spinak, Edward Ross Aranow Clinical Professor Emerita of Law, has spent thousands of hours in family court. She has witnessed its failures caused by a legacy of racism, a profound disdain for poverty, and assimilationist norms intent on fixing children and families that are “different.” In The End of Family Court, she proposes reducing the number and types of matters that require adjudication and ensuring the due process protections of a court of law for any case that does. Her abolitionist approach calls for strategies that instead rely on communities to create and sustain meaningful solutions for families.