Tom Ginsburg

Tom Ginsburg (born February 22, 1967) is the Leo Spitz Professor of International Law and Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is primarily known as a scholar of international and comparative law, with a focus on constitutions and a regional specialty of East Asia.

Ginsburg was born in Berkeley, California on February 22, 1967. He holds a B.A. in Asian Studies, a J.D., and a Ph.D in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from the University of California at Berkeley. He was a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Law from 2000-2008, after which he joined the law faculty at Chicago.

Before entering law teaching at the University of Illinois in 2000, he served as a legal advisor to the Iran-US Claims Tribunal in the Hague, Netherlands as well as consulting for numerous international development agencies and foreign governments. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo, Kyushu University, Seoul National University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Trento.

In addition to 7 books, he has written a large number of journal and law review articles. With Zachary Elkins, he founded the Comparative Constitutions Project, which records the content of a complete set of national constitutions since 1789 and produces the website Constitute in partnership with Google Ideas.

• The Endurance Of National Constitutions (Cambridge University Press, 2009) (with Zachary Elkins and James Melton)
• Administrative Law And Governance In Asia: Comparative Perspectives (Routledge Press, 2009) (with Albert Chen)
• Rule By Law: The Politics Of Courts In Authoritarian Regimes (Cambridge University Press, 2008) (with Tamir Moustafa)
• Institutions And Public Law: Comparative Approaches (Peter Lang Publishing, 2005) (with Robert A. Kagan).
• Legal Reform In Korea (Routledge Publishing, 2004).
• Judicial Review In New Democracies: Constitutional Courts In East Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2003). Winner of the C. Herman Pritchett Award from the American Political Science Association for the best book on law and courts.
• The Multiple Worlds Of Japanese Law (University of Victoria Center for Asia Pacific Initiatives, 2001) (with Luke Nottage and Hiroo Sono).