Ran Hirschl named David R. Cameron Distinguished Professor in Law and Politics

August 3, 2023

Congratulations to Ran Hirschl who has been appointed the David R. Cameron Distinguished Professor in Law and Politics, from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2028.

Professor Hirschl studies constitutional law and constitutional institutions and their intersection with comparative politics and society. He is the author of several major books including City, State: Constitutionalism and the Megacity (Oxford University Press, 2020) – winner of the 2021 Stein Rokkan Prize in Comparative Social Science Research; Comparative Matters: The Renaissance of Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press, 2014) – winner of the 2015 American Political Science Association (APSA) Herman Pritchett Award for the best book on law and courts; Constitutional Theocracy (Harvard University Press, 2010) – winner of the 2011 Mahoney Prize in Legal Theory; and Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism (Harvard University Press, 2004), which won the 2021 Lasting Contribution Award from the American Political Science Association’s Law and Courts Section. Professor Hirschl is also the author of over 150 articles and book chapters on Canadian and comparative public law, published in top social science journals, law reviews and in agenda-setting edited collections.

Professor Hirschl has won academic excellence awards and fellowships in five different countries including the Canada Research Chair in Constitutionalism, Democracy and Development, the Killam Research Fellowship awarded by the Canada Council of the Arts, and a coveted Alexander von Humboldt International Research Award, the most highly-endowed research award in Germany. He is the recipient of a Faculty of Arts and Science teaching award and the APSA & Pi Sigma Alpha certificate for outstanding teaching in political science. He has served as co-president of the International Society of Public Law, and held distinguished visiting professorships at Harvard, NYU, and NUS, as well as fellowships at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, Princeton University, and with the Max Planck Society. Professor Hirschl’s scholarship has been translated into various languages, cited by jurists and in high court decisions worldwide, and is quoted regularly in the media including the CBC, The New York Times, Folha de São Paulo, Le Figaro, Deutsche Welle, and the Jerusalem Post.

As of 2014, Professor Hirschl is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC). The official citation describes him as “one of the world’s leading scholars of comparative constitutional law, courts and jurisprudence.”

“It is a tremendous honour to be named a distinguished professor, and to have David Cameron’s name attached to it,” Hirschl says. “David has been a major scholar and a leading figure in the Department, the Faculty and the University for decades. He also served in key public service positions, representing Canada and Canadian ideals at the world stage. His unflagging commitment to human dignity, morality and to doing the right thing, personally and collectively, near and far, makes me the proudest named professor at the University of Toronto.”

The purpose of U of T’s Distinguished Professor program is to advance and recognize individuals with highly distinguished accomplishments and those who maintain an extraordinary level of activity in their research and scholarly work and have achieved pre-eminence in their field.

To learn more about U of T’s Distinguished Professors, visit: https://provost.utoronto.ca/awards-funding/distinguished-professors/

(This announcement was originally posted on July 13th)