PROFILE
Dr Nico Krisch is a professor of international law and head of the International Law Department at the Geneva Graduate Institute. His main research interests concern the legal structure of international organizations and global governance and the politics of international law. Prior to joining the Institute, he was an ICREA research professor at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals and held faculty positions at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin and the Law Department of the London School of Economics. He was also a research fellow at Oxford University’s Merton College, at New York University School of Law and at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, as well as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and Columbia Law School. Originally from Germany, he holds a PhD in law from the University of Heidelberg. His 2010 book, Beyond Constitutionalism: The Pluralist Structure of Postnational Law (Oxford University Press), received the Certificate of Merit of the American Society of International Law. Dr Krisch is a member of the Council of the International Society of Public Law, and of the editorial/advisory boards of the Journal of International Dispute Settlement, the London Review of International Law and the Chinese Journal of Transnational Law. In 2017, he was awarded a European Research Council Advanced Grant for a project on change and stability in international law. In 2019, he received the inaugural Max Planck-Cambridge Prize for International Law. His most recent book is Change in International Law: Paths, Processes, Power (Oxford University Press, 2026, with Ezgi Yildiz and Pedro Martinez Esponda).
THEMATIC EXPERTISE
- Governance & multilateralism
- International organisations, UN
- International courts & dispute settlement
- Human rights
- Multilateral diplomacy, international negotiations
- Sanctions
- International & targeted sanctions
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Monographs
- Beyond Constitutionalism: The Pluralist Structure of Postnational Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010 (paperback, 2012), 382 pp.
- Selbstverteidigung und kollektive Sicherheit (Self-Defense and Collective Security), Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2001, XVII, 449 pp.
Articles and Chapters in Books
- ‘Order at the Margins: The Legal Construction of Interface Conflicts over Time’, 9 Global Constitutionalism (2020), 343-363 (with Francesco Corradini & Lucy Lu Reimers)
- ‘Liquid Authority in Global Governance’, 9 International Theory (2017), 237-260
- ‘Pouvoir Constituant and Pouvoir Irritant in the Postnational Order’, International Journal of Constitutional Law 14:3 (2016), 657-679
- ‘Subsidiarity in Global Governance’, Law & Contemporary Problems 79:2 (2016), 1-26 (with Markus Jachtenfuchs)
- ‘The Decay of Consent: International Law in an Age of Global Public Goods’, 108 American Journal of International Law (2014), 1-40
- ‘Chapter VII Powers: The General Framework’, ‘Articles 39 to 43’, in B. Simma, G. Nolte, D.-E. Khan & A. Paulus (eds), The United Nations Charter: A Commentary, Oxford: Oxford University Press (3rd ed., 2012) 1237-1356
- ‘The Pluralism of Global Administrative Law’, 17 European Journal of International Law (2006), 247-278
- ‘The Emergence of Global Administrative Law’, 68:3 Law & Contemporary Problems 15-61 (2005) (with B. Kingsbury & R.B. Stewart)
- ‘International Law in Times of Hegemony: Unequal Power and the Shaping of the International Legal Order’, 16 European Journal of International Law 369-408 (2005)
Edited Symposia
- Liquid Authority in Global Governance, Symposium, 9 International Theory (2017), 237-351
- Subsidiarity in Global Governance, Special issue of Law and Contemporary Problems 79:2 (2016), 1-283 (edited with Markus Jachtenfuchs)
- Global Governance as Public Authority: Structures, Contestation, and Normative Change, Symposium, 10:4 International Journal of Constitutional Law 976-1133 (2012)
- Global Administrative Law and the International Legal Order, Symposium Issue, 17:1 European Journal of International Law (2006) (edited with B Kingsbury)
- The Emergence of Global Administrative Law, Symposium Issue, 68:3 Law & Contemporary Problems 1-377 (2005) (edited with B Kingsbury, RB Stewart and J Wiener)