Karen Alter
Professor of Political Science and Law
Phone: (312) 503-1847
E-mail: kalter@northwestern.edu
Related Links: Political Science Department Profile
Karen J. Alter is Professor of Political Science and Law at Northwestern University, specializing in the international politics of international organizations and international law. Alter is author of The European Court’s Political Power (Oxford University Press, 2009), Establishing the Supremacy of European Law (Oxford University Press, 2001) and numerous articles and book chapters on the politics of international courts and international law. She is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook on International Adjudication (Oxford University Press, 2013) and has published in the American Journal of International Law, International Organization, Comparative Political Studies, Perspectives on Politics, European Journal of International Relations, European Law Journal, Law and Contemporary Problems, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Journal of International Law and Politics, and European Union Politics. Fluent in Italian, French and German, Alter’s research has been supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Berlin, the Howard Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, the DAAD, and the Bourse Chateaubriand Scientifique. Alter is member of the New York Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the editorial board of Law and Social Inquiry. She has been a visiting scholar at the Northwestern Law School, the American Academy in Berlin, the Institute d’Etudes Politiques, the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Auswartiges Politik, Harvard University’s Center for European Studies, Harvard Law School, Seikei University, the Sonderforschungsbereich of Universitat Bremen, and the American Bar Foundation. She will spend the 2011-2012 academic year on leave as a John Simon Guggenheim fellow and a fellow at the American Academy of Berlin, completing her book titled The New Terrain of International Law: International Courts in International Politics.
Selected Publications
- The European Court’s Political Power: Selected Essays (Oxford University Press, 2009).
- The European Court’s Political Power Across Time and Space.
- Nature or Nurture: Lawmaking in the European Court of Justice and the Andean Tribunal of Justice in 64 international organization 563-592 (2010). (with Laurence Helfer )
- The Andean Tribunal of Justice and Its Interlocutors: Understanding Preliminary Reference Patterns in the Andean Community in 41 new york university journal of international law and politics 871-930 (2009). (with Laurence R. Helfer )
- Islands of Effective International Adjudication: Constructing an Intellectual Property Rule of Law in the Andean Community in 103 american journal of international law 1-47 (2009). (with Laurence Helfer and Maria Florencia Guerzovich)
- The Politics of International Regime Complexity in 7 perspectives on politics 13-24 (2009). (with Sophie Meunier)
Education
- BA, Cornell University
- PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
