Karin Spidel
kspidel@SanDiego.edu
(619) 260-2962
Professor of Law
- Doctor in Legal Science, 1991, University of Buenos Aires
- MPhil, 1986, Argentine Society of Philosophical Analysis
- LLB, 1979, University of Buenos Aires
Areas of Expertise
Professor Spector teaches International Migration Law, Introduction to U.S. Law (for international LLM students), Jurisprudence and Legal Theory, Comparative Law, International Law, and Latin American Legal Institutions.
Professional Experience
Professor Spector is the former provost of Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Argentina and founding dean of the Torcuato Di Tella Law School, where he teaches legal theory, political philosophy, and constitutional law. He has been welcomed as visiting professor at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center of Louisiana State University, the Faculty of Law of the University of Toronto, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Universidad de Alicante in Spain. Professor Spector has served as co-editor of the Argentine Congressional Record and the managing editor of Latin American and Caribbean Journal of Legal Studies.
Honors and Affiliations
Professor Spector was a John Simon Guggenheim fellow at Harvard University and has also visited as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the University of Mannheim, Oxford University's Balliol College, the University of Heidelberg and the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1996, he was awarded the Diploma of Merit Konex in Philosophy of Law, and in 2008 he received the Atlas Foundation’s Francisco de Vitoria Prize in Human Rights for his leadership in human rights studies at the Torcuato Di Tella School of Law. In 2020, he received the Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship at the European University Institute.
Scholarly Work
- Autonomy and Rights, in The Routledge Handbook of Autonomy (Ben Colburn ed., Routledge 2022)
- Luck Egalitarianism and the Spirit of Capitalism, 23 Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 439 (2022)
- Constitutional Proportionality and Moral Deontology, 12 Jurisprudence 512 (2021)
- Positive Liberty and Paternalism, in Positive Liberty: Past, Present, and Future (John Christman ed., Cambridge University Press 2021)
- Verantwortung, Kausalität und freier Wille [Responsibility, Causality, and Free Will], in Brucken Bauen, Festschrift fur Marcelo Sancinetti Zum 70. Geburtstag (Eric Hilgendorf, Marcelo Lerman & Fernando Cordoba eds., 2020)
- A Pragmatic Reconstruction of Law’s Claim to Authority, 32 Ratio Juris 21 (2019)
- A Risk Theory of Exploitation, in The Philosophic Foundations of Labor Law (Hugh Collins, Gillian Lester & Virginia Mantouvalou eds., Oxford University Press 2018)
- Legal Reasons and Upgrading Reasons, in Unpacking Normativity (Kenneth Einar Himma, Miodrag Jovanovic & Bojan Spaic eds., Hart Publishing 2018)
- Legal Philosophy and Law and Economics, in The Methodology of Law and Economics (Thomas Ulen ed., Edward Elgar Publishing 2017)
- Decisional Nonconsequentialism and the Risk Sensitivity of Obligation, 32 Social Philosophy & Policy 91 (2016)
- Derechos Humanos, in Diccionario de Justicia (Sage Publications 2016) (with Failache et al.)
- Modern Constitutionalism and Social Values, in Fundamental Rights: Justification and Interpretation (Kenneth Einar Himma & Bojan Spaic eds., Eleven International Publishing 2016)
- The Moral Asymmetry between Acts and Omissions, in Legal, Moral, and Metaphysical Truths: The Philosophy of Michael Moore (Kimberly Ferzan & Stephen Morse eds., Oxford University Press 2016)