Bio
Moria Paz is a scholar whose research critically investigates the place of minorities, migrants, and refugees within a legal order fundamentally rooted in state sovereignty. She undertakes a critical inquiry into the actual, on-the-ground operation of human rights law and international law (and their intersection with national law), aiming to develop a functional understanding of the limits and possibilities of using extraterritorial law to protect the interests of individuals and minority groups.
Her books include:
- The Law of Strangers: Jewish Lawyers and International Law in the Twentieth Century (edited with James Loeffler, Cambridge University Press, 2019). This volume was nominated for the 2020 National Jewish Book Award and the 2019 Just Security Holiday Reading List.
- The Failed Promise of Language Rights (Éditions Universitaires Européennes, 2017). This book compiles Paz’s published work on the international legal protection of minority languages.
Paz is currently working on two new books:
- Network or State? International Law and the History of Jewish Self-Determination (forthcoming 2025). An early draft of this manuscript was selected for presentation at The American Society of International Law Research Forum, 2019 (waived).
- An edited volume exploring the status of refugees across the Middle East and North Africa.
Paz has been a Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Law School and the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies at Berkeley Law School. She has also served as a Fellow at the Hauser Center for Non-Profit Organizations at Harvard University, the Center on National Security and the Law at Georgetown University Law Center, and as the Law and International Security Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Additionally, Paz has visited TRAFFLAB at Tel Aviv University and the Faculty of Law at Bar Ilan University.
Before joining the UC Law SF faculty, Paz attended university in four different countries: Israel, England, China, and the USA.
Education
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Harvard Law School
LL.M. and S.J.D. -
University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies
Law and B.A. in Mandarin -
Beijing Shi Fan Da Xue
Diploma in Mandarin
Accomplishments
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Paz’s articles have received multiple prizes and awards.
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Emerging Immigration Scholars conference
Paz’s book chapter, "A Most Inglorious Right: René Cassin, Freedom of Movement, Jews and Palestinians," in Jewish Lawyers and International Law: A Sphere Between Nations (2019), was competitively selected for the Emerging Immigration Scholars conference. 2019 -
Sakip Sabanci International Research Essay Award
"The Law of Walls," 28 European Journal of International Law 2 (2017), won the Sakip Sabanci International Research Essay Award. 2017 -
Berkeley Journal of International Law Special Panel
The Berkeley Journal organized a special panel around Paz paper, "Between the Kingdom and the Desert Sun: Human Rights, Immigration, and Border Walls," 34 Berkeley Journal of International Law 2016 -
Listed by Jotwell as one of the best works of recent scholarship relating to immigration law
Paz’s Stanford Public Law Working Paper No. 2526521 was selected by Jotwell as one of the best works of recent scholarship relating to immigration law 2015 -
Winner of the Law & Humanities Interdisciplinary Writing Competition
"The Tower of Babel: Human Rights and the Paradox of Language," 25 European Journal of International Law 473 (2014), was the 2014 Winner of the Law & Humanities Interdisciplinary Writing Competition and chosen for the 2014 New Voices selection by the European Journal of International Law. 2014 -
New Voices selection by the European Journal of International Law
2014 -
New Voices selection from the American Society of International Law
"The Failed Promise of Language Rights: A Critique of the International Language Rights Regime," 54 Harvard International Law Journal (2013), was chosen for the 2013 New Voices selection from the American Society of International Law. 2013 -
Laylin Prize for Best Paper in International Law
Paz’s SJD dissertation "The Rise and Fall of Ethnic Transnationalism: The Case of the Alliance Israélite Universelle" was later published as "States and Networks in the Formation of International Law," 26 American University International Law Review 1241 (2011), and was the 2007 Winner of the Laylin Prize for Best Paper in International Law. 2007 -
Selected Scholarship
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Rights in Mobility: 1870-2020 - Exploring Entry, Return, and Nationality, in Slicing the Gordian Knot of Sovereignty and Migration Control
Am. J. Int'l L. Unbound (forthcoming) 2024 -
Toward a Taxonomy of Freedom of Movement Claims: Identifying Rights-Based Pathways for Today's Refugees Beyond the 1951 Refugee Convention,
65 Harv. Int'l L.J. (forthcoming) 2024 -
Lost in the Maze
52 Seton Hall L. Rev. 2022 -
The Legal Reconstruction of Walls: N.D. & N.T. v. Spain, 2017
22 N.Y.U. J. Legis. & Pub. Pol'y 693 2020 -
A Most Inglorious Right: René Cassin, Freedom of Movement, Jews and Palestinians
Jewish Lawyers and International Law: A Sphere Between Nations 2019 -
Introduction (with James Loeffler)
Jewish Lawyers and International Law: A Sphere Between Nations 2019 -
The Incomplete Right to Freedom of Movement
111 Am. J. Int'l L. Unbound 514 2017 -
The Law of Walls
28 Eur. J. Int'l L. 2 2017 -
Asylum and Terrorism: The Death of Human Rights Law?
102 Iowa L. Rev. Online 41 2016 -
Between the Kingdom and the Desert Sun: Human Rights, Immigration, and Border Walls
34 Berkeley J. Int'l L. 2016 -
The Tower of Babel: Human Rights and the Paradox of Language
25 Eur. J. Int'l L. 473 2014 -
Harvard International Law Journal Symposium: Moria Paz Responds to Efrat Arbel
Opinio Juris (Mar. 9, 2013) 2013 -
Human Rights and the Tower of Babel: A Critique of the International Legal Regime for the Protection of Language Diversity
107 Am. Soc'y Int'l L. Proc. 478 2013 -
The Failed Promise of Language Rights: A Critique of the International Language Rights Regime
54 Harv. Int'l L.J. 2013 -
States and Networks in the Formation of International Law
26 Am. U. Int'l L. Rev. 1241 2011 -
A Non-Territorial Ethnic-Religious Network and the Making of Human Rights Law: The Alliance Israélite Universelle
4 Interdisc. J. Hum. Rts. L. 1 2010
