The Treaty as Platform
This project considers digital platform governance as a new source of global governance, and also asks how international law can borrow from the experience of digital platform governance to revitalize at a moment of crisis.
The project focuses on two international instruments—the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. I argue that both instruments function in ways that are more analogous to platforms than to law and can be evaluated more fully and reformed more effectively from this perspective.
Although legal scholars generally treat digital platforms as merely a problem for regulation, platforms have many qualities of transnational self-regulatory communities, akin to offshore banking systems or transnational social movements, that draw upon but also usurp the authority of nation-states. This project considers what can be learned from platform sociality for international governance and how critical and technical debates about digital platforms can illuminate new solutions for international law.
Northwestern University
Jan. 1, 2024-present Professor of Law and Special Assistant to the President for Global Sustainability
Sept. 2018-2024 Associate Provost for Global Affairs
Sept. 2018-Dec. 2023 Executive Director, Buffett Institute for Global Affairs
Sept. 2018-present Professor of Law, Pritzker School of Law
Sept. 2018-present Professor of Anthropology (by courtesy), Northwestern University
Cornell University
2002-2018 Jack G. Clarke ’52 Professor of Far East Legal Studies, 2007-2018 • Steering Committee Member, Peace Studies Program, 2003-2010 • Core Faculty Member, East Asia Program
2002-2018 Professor, Department of Anthropology
2002-2018 Founder and Director, Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture
2011-2018 Founder and Director, Meridian 180 (A community of 1500+ thought leaders from academia, business, government and civil society from over 40 countries with a center of gravity in the Pacific Rim working to find forward-thinking solutions to the next global crises)
Yale Law School
2001-02 Visiting Professor
Northwestern University
2000-2002 Professor, Northwestern University School of Law
1997-2000 Assistant Professor, Northwestern University School of Law
Spring 1997 Visiting Assistant Professor, Northwestern University School of Law, Spring 1997
1997-2002 Affiliated Faculty Member, Department of Anthropology
American Bar Foundation
1997-2002 Research Fellow
1996-1997 Postdoctoral Fellow, American Bar Foundation
Everyday Ambassadors (manuscript under representation by Distal, Goodrich & Bourret)
Pour une anthropologie des savoirs juridiques (collection of essays translated and edited by Vincent Réveillère), Dalloz, Rivages du droit, 2022.
Financial Citizenship: Experts, Publics & the Politics of Central Banking, Cornell University Press, 2018.
Collateral Knowledge: Legal Reasoning in the Global Financial Markets, University of Chicago Press, 2011.
Documents: Artifacts of Modern Knowledge, Michigan University Press, 2006.
Rethinking the Masters of Comparative Law, Oxford-Hart Publishing, 2001.
The Network Inside Out, University of Michigan Press, 2000.
Chevalier (Knight) in the Order of Academic Palms, Republic of France
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Anneliese Maier Prize for lifetime scholarly achievement (2018)
Nagasaki Peace Correspondent (awarded 2019)
Awarded the Certificate of Merit of the American Society of International Law, 2000- 2001 for The Network Inside Out (Michigan Press 2000)
Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Scientific Panel Member, European Research Council *Japan Foundation American Advisory Committee
