Justin Desautels-Stein

Director, Center for Critical Thought
Professor of Law
Affiliated Faculty, Department of History


401 UCB
2450 Kittredge Loop Drive
Wolf Law Building
Boulder, CO  80309
Office: 481D
E-mail: jjdstein@colorado.edu

Bio:
Justin Desautels-Stein joined the University of Colorado Law School faculty in 2009. Widely recognized as a leading voice in critical jurisprudence and the history of legal thought, Justin is the Founding Director of the University of Colorado's Center for Critical Thought, a site for interdisciplinary and collaborative research housed with the University's Graduate School. He teaches courses on International Law, Law and Economic Development, Conflict of Laws, Globalization, Critical Race Theory, Jurisprudence, Philosophy of Law, Constitutional Law, and Property. His scholarship concentrates on the history of legal thought, with special emphases on the United States and International Relations. His most recent books, both with Cambridge University Press, include The Jurisprudence of Style: A Structuralist History of American Pragmatism and Liberal Legal Thought, and the co-edited volume with Christopher Tomlins, Searching for Contemporary Legal Thought. His current project concerns a critical race theory approach to international law, which will include an edited volume titled Race, Racism, and International Law: Critical Race Theory in Global Context (with Devon Carbado, Kim Crenshaw, and Chantal Thomas). Prior to joining CU, Professor Desautels-Stein practiced for three years in the Antitrust and Competition Group at Latham & Watkins in Washington, DC, served in the Codification Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, and worked as a consultant to the Afghanistan Constitutional Commission. During his graduate education, he was awarded a fellowship with a South African development organization, and taught a course on the U.S. Civil Rights Movement at Changzhou College in China. Professor Desautels-Stein holds graduate degrees from Harvard Law School, The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Published Books

Race, Racism, and International Law, (forthcoming with Stanford University Press) (co-edited with Devon Carbado, Kimberle Crenshaw, and Chantal Thomas).
The Right to Exclude: A Critical Race Approach to Sovereignty, Borders, and International Law, (Oxford University Press, 2023).
The Jurisprudence of Style: A Structuralist History of American Pragmatism and Liberal Legal Thought, (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Searching for Contemporary Legal Thought, (Cambridge University Press, 2017) (co-edited with Christopher Tomlins).

Book Chapters

Duncan Kennedy, in Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, (Mortimer Sellers & Stephan Kirste, Eds.) (Springer, 2023).
Rule of Law, in Tipping Points in International Law: Commitment and Critique, (John Haskell & Jean d'Aspremont, eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
The Realist and the Visionary: On the Problem of Social Change in the History of International Legal Thought, 1919-2019, in Contingency in the Course of International Law : How International Law Could Have Been (Kevin Jon Heller and Ingo Venzke, eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2020).
Structuralist and Poststructuralist Legal History, in The Oxford Handbook of Legal History (Markus Dubber, ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2018).
After the End of Legal Thought, in Searching for Contemporary Legal Thought, (Justin Desautels-Stein & Christopher Tomlins, eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Afterword, in Searching for Contemporary Legal Thought, (Justin Desautels-Stein & Christopher Tomlins, eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2017) (co-authored with Christopher Tomlins).
The Market as a Legal Concept: Classic Liberalism, Modern Liberalism, Pragmatic Liberalism, in Political Economy And Law: A Handbook Of Research, Theory, and Practice (Ugo Mattei & John Haskell, eds., Edward Elger Press, 2015).

Articles

On the Domestication of Critical Legal History, 60 History & Theory 386 (2021) (co-authored with Sam Moyn) (peer-reviewed journal).
Deep Cuts: Four Critiques of Legal Ideology, 31 Yale J. L. & Hum. 435 (2021) (co-authored with Akbar Rasulov).
A Prolegomenon to the Study of Racial Ideology in the Era of International Human Rights, 67 UCLA L. Rev. 1536 (2021).
A Context for Legal History, or, This is Not Your Father's Contextualism, 56 Am. J. Legal Hist. 29 (2016) (peer-reviewed journal).
From Apology to Utopia's Point of Attack, 29 Leiden J. Int'l L. 677 (2016) (peer-reviewed journal).
International Legal Structuralism: A Primer, 8 Int'l Theory 201 (2016) (peer-reviewed journal).
Structuralist Legal Histories, 78 Law & Contemp. Probs. 37 (2015).
Foreword: Theorizing Contemporary Legal Thought, 78 Law & Contemp. Probs. i (2015) (co-authored with Duncan Kennedy).
Book Review (Joel Trachtman, The Future of International Law), J. Int'l Econ. L., 18(1) pp. 479-486 (2015) (peer-reviewed journal).
Classcrits Mission Statement, 43 Southwestern L. Rev. 651 (2014) (co-authored with Angela Harris, et al).
The Judge and the Drone, 56 Ariz. L. Rev. 117 (2014).
Chiastic Law in the Crystal Ball: Exploring Legal Formalism and its Alternative Futures, 2 London Rev. Int'l L. 263 (2014) (peer-reviewed journal).
Back in Style, 25 L. & Critique 141 (2014) (peer-reviewed journal).
Pragmatic Liberalism: The Outlook of the Dead, 55 B.C. L. Rev. 1041 (2014).
A Structuralist Approach to the Two State Action Doctrines, 7 N.Y.U. J. L. & Lib. 254 (2013).
Experimental Pragmatism in the Third Globalization, 9 Contemp. Pragmatism 181 (2012) (peer-reviewed journal). (An extended version of the essay was reprinted as Economic Development and the Problem with the Problem-Solving Approach, 5 Wash. U. Juris. Rev. 1 (2012)).
The Market as a Legal Concept, 60 Buff. L. Rev. 387(2012).
Race as a Legal Concept, 2 Colum. J. Race & L. 1(2012).
Extraterritoriality, Antitrust, and the Pragmatist Style, 22 Emory Int'l L. Rev. 499(2008).
At War with the Eclectics: Mapping Pragmatism in Contemporary Legal Analysis, 2007 Mich. St. L. Rev. 565 (2007).

Courses:

Spring 2022 International Law LAWS 6400-801
Spring 2022 Seminar: Special Topics in International Law LAWS 8400-801
Fall 2020 Foundations of International Legal Thought LAWS 6008-801
Fall 2020 Conflict of Laws LAWS 6108-801
Fall 2020 International Law LAWS 6400-801
Spring 2020 Property LAWS 5624-801
Fall 2019 Conflict of Laws LAWS 6108-801
Fall 2019 International Law LAWS 6400-801
Spring 2019 Property LAWS 5624-801
Fall 2018 Conflict of Laws LAWS 6108-801
Fall 2018 International Law LAWS 6400-801
Fall 2018 International Law LAWS 6400-902
Spring 2018 Property LAWS 5624-802
Fall 2017 Foundations of International Legal Thought LAWS 6008-801
Fall 2017 Seminar: Special Topics in International Law LAWS 8400-801
Spring 2017 Property LAWS 5624-802
Spring 2016 Property LAWS 5624-802
Fall 2015 International Law LAWS 6400-001
Fall 2015 Global Law and Global Governance LAWS 6540-001
Spring 2015 Property LAWS 5624-802
Spring 2015 International Law LAWS 6400-001
Fall 2014 Foundations of International Legal Thought LAWS 6008-001
Spring 2014 International Law LAWS 6400-001
Fall 2013 Foundations of International Legal Thought LAWS 6008-001
Fall 2013 Seminar: Conflict of Laws LAWS 8650-001
Spring 2013 Philosophy of Law LAWS 6508-001
Fall 2012 Foundations of International Legal Thought LAWS 6008-001