Beyond compliance: Harold C. Schott Lecture explores international law's current crisis

Jacob Katz Cogan is the Judge Joseph P. Kinneary Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati Donald P. Klekamp College of Law. He is also an Affiliate Faculty Member of the Department of History. Professor Cogan teaches contracts, international business transactions, international commercial arbitration, property, and public international law. He earned his JD from Yale Law School, his MA and PhD in History from Princeton University, and his BA, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania. Immediately prior to joining UC Klekamp College of Law, Professor Cogan served as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, where he counseled policymakers on international organizations, international law enforcement, and international investment disputes, served as counsel for the United States at the International Court of Justice and the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, and worked on cases at all levels of the U.S. federal courts. He is a recipient of the Department’s Superior Honor Award. He was previously a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and has held visiting appointments at Vanderbilt University Law School and the University of Chicago Law School. 

Professor Cogan’s research focuses on the practice of international law, especially the hidden assumptions, informal rules, and tacit understandings that form, and have formed, the operational international legal system. In doing so, he often writes about global governance, international organizations, and the history of international law. He is the coeditor of “In Between and Across: Legal History Without Boundaries” (2024), “Proceedings of the 112th Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law” (2019), “The Oxford Handbook of International Organizations” (2016), and “Looking to the Future: Essays on International Law in Honor of W. Michael Reisman” (2011). Professor Cogan’s articles and essays have appeared in American Journal of International Law, the European Journal of International Law, the Harvard International Law Journal, the Journal of the History of International Law, and the Yale Journal of International Law, among many other journals. He writes the section on the contemporary practice of the United States relating to international law for the American Journal of International Law. In 2010, he was awarded the Francis Deák Prize of the American Society of International Law. 

Professor Cogan is the faculty director of the Cincinnati Center for the Global Practice of Law, the co-editor-in-chief of the International Organizations Law Review, the series editor of the Elgar International Law Series, the deputy editor of the Human Rights Quarterly, an elected member of the American Law Institute, and a member of the editorial boards of the American Journal of International Law and Oxford International Organizations. He is a Counsellor of the American Society of International Law and a member of the Society’s Executive Committee. He previously served as the College’s Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and its Associate Dean of Faculty. The College has recognized both his scholarship and teaching by awarding him twice the Harold C. Schott Scholarship Award and twice the Goldman Prize for Excellence in Teaching. He is the publisher of the International Law Reporter, a widely read and relied upon blog on scholarship, events, and ideas related to international law. 

Cogan Photo: UC Photography

Lead Photo: Mark Herboth