Professor Brad Roth named to the Wayne State University Academy of Scholars

Dr. Brad Roth, professor of political science and law, received a signal honor from Wayne State University in 2018 in his selection for The Academy of Scholars. The Academy of Scholars was founded in 1979 and "recognizes distinguished research and creative achievement by selecting for membership the most productive and widely recognized individuals among the university's faculty. Membership in the Academy is the highest recognition that may be bestowed upon Faculty members by their colleagues."

Professor Roth is one of a small number of academics whose training and research span disciplines located in distinctly different colleges. Dr. Roth received his B.A. in Political Science from Swarthmore, his J.D. from Harvard Law, his LL.N. in International and Foreign Law from Columbia, and his Ph.D. in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program from the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to his positions at Wayne State University, Dr. Roth taught at the U.C. Berkeley School of Law, is a licensed member of the Bar in New Jersey and Washington, DC, and holds ancillary licenses for the U.S. District Court of New Jersey, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dr. Roth has amassed a superlative record of research since joining Wayne State University in 1997. He has published two sole-authored books, Sovereign Equality and Moral Disagreement: Premises of a Pluralist International Legal Order (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Governmental Illegitimacy in International Law (Oxford University Press, 1999), and two co-edited volumes, Democratic Governance and International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2000) and Supreme Law of the Land?: Debating the Contemporary Effects of Treaties within the United States Legal System (Cambridge University Press, 2017). He has also published over 40 journal articles and book chapters in some of the most prestigious university presses and law journals in our profession. Since 2009, Professor Roth has delivered dozens of invited lectures for universities and organizations around the world, including the University of Goettingen, the London School of Economics, the University of Amsterdam, Oxford University, McGill University, and Goethe University (Frankfort). The exceptional quality of Dr. Roth's scholarship was recognized by Wayne State University when he was awarded a Full Professorship in 2011 and a Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award in 2012.

Professor Roth's work applies legal and political theory to problems in international and comparative public law. His scholarship has focused largely on the intersection of international and domestic legal authority, addressing such topics as the right to self-determination of "peoples" residing within the territory of existing states, the purported international right to democratic governance, the transnational criminal liabilities and immunities of government officials who commit acts of state in violation of international legal obligations, and the implementation of international human rights standards in domestic courts. Drawing on relevant traditions in political philosophy, his writings have articulated a unifying account of the relationship between international and domestic legal orders that asserts the moral obligations of international legal commitments without denying the continuing moral significance of state sovereignty.

Acknowledged as a leading expert on the international law of recognition of states and governments, Professor Roth serves as one of three American Branch representatives to the International Law Association's Committee on Recognition/Non-Recognition of States and Governments, and his work in the areas of sovereignty, moral standards, and international action have been lauded by scholars throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia who specialize in international law. It can be said without exaggeration that Professor Roth has attained an international reputation that places him at the pinnacle of his field.

The last member of our department to be selected for the Academy was Philip Abbott. Congratulations to Professor Roth on his recognition as an exceptional scholar at Wayne State University!