2025 YCC Conference Call for Papers (and Student Awards Call)
April 10, 2025
The Younger Comparativists Committee (YCC) of the American Society of Comparative Law (ASCL) is pleased to invite submissions for the YCC Program to be held in-person in conjunction with the ASCL Annual Meeting from Thursday, October 16th to Saturday, October 18th at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The purpose of the YCC conference is to highlight, develop, and promote the scholarship of younger scholars of comparative law.
Conference Subject-Matter and Eligibility
Abstract submissions will be accepted from younger scholars on any subject in public or private comparative law. Submissions to the YCC conference are encouraged to engage with the ASCL Annual Meeting’s main themes (Democratic Backsliding and Comparative Constitutional Law; Reconsidering Comparative Law’s Imperial Pasts: Colonial Legacies and Methodological Reflections; Trade, Commercial Law, and the Promise of Doux Commerce) but may also be situated more broadly within comparative law.
For the purposes of the YCC program, “younger scholars” are defined as graduate students, law teachers, lecturers, fellows, and other scholars, provided that they have not held a full-time academic position since before July 1, 2015 (i.e., less than 10 years as of June 30, 2025). Submissions from full-time faculty, research fellows, and graduate students are equally welcome.
Please note that individuals may submit to present either at the ASCL Annual Meeting or the YCC program, but not both.
Submission Instructions
Abstracts should reflect original research that will not yet have been published but may have been accepted for publication. To submit, scholars should include:
1) a 250 word abstract in the body of an email, as well as in attachment (Microsoft Word or PDF), to ycc@ascl.org;
2) the author’s name, title of the paper, institutional affiliation, contact information, and three to five keywords;
(3) certification that they qualify as a younger scholar or are a graduate student; and
(4) a statement concerning whether they will be requesting a travel stipend.
Please note that requests for stipends do not affect whether your paper will be accepted.
Each scholar may make only one submission. Both individual and co-authored submissions will be accepted. For co-authored submissions, both authors must qualify as younger comparativists. The conference’s Program Subcommittee will assign individual and co-authored submissions to thematic panels according to subject area.
The deadline for submission is May 14, 2025. Abstracts received thereafter will not be considered.
Authors of the submissions selected for the conference will be notified no later than June 21, 2025.
There will be no registration fee for YCC participants to attend the YCC program, but participants are strongly encouraged to register to attend the ASCL Annual Meeting, which does require a small fee. Participants are responsible for securing their own funding for travel, lodging, and other incidental expenses. Partial travel stipends may be awarded to those who indicate financial need. Priority will be given to faculty and students of ASCL Member Institutions, and thereafter to authors from non-Member institutions. If you would like to be considered for a travel stipend, please make that request in your submission and indicate your institution’s status. Priority for stipends will also be given to those who identify the need for funding in their initial submission.
Paper Prizes
Colin B. Picker Graduate Student Prize
The YCC will award the Colin B. Picker Prize for the best paper submitted by a graduate student. To be considered for the award, in addition to submitting an abstract by the above deadline, graduate students whose abstracts are accepted for the conference must also submit their papers in their final form by August 15, 2025, to ycc@ascl.org with the following subject line: “Submission for Graduate Student Prize.”
Phanor J. Eder Prize in Comparative Law
The YCC will award the Phanor J. Eder Prize for the best paper submitted by a J.D., B.A., LL.B., or other student who has not yet completed their first law degree as of May 31, 2025. The author(s) of the winning paper will receive a modest stipend to help defray the costs of attending the conference and presenting the paper there.
Those wishing to participate for this prize should also submit their paper by June 13, 2025 via an e-mail to ycc@ascl.org with the subject line: “Submission for Phanor J. Eder Prize”. The email should state each author’s name and law school contact information, the title of the paper, and a certification that each author satisfies the eligibility criteria set out above. The paper should be attached to this email in Microsoft Word or PDF format. Papers must be no more than 15,000 words (excluding footnotes). Submissions should reflect original research that will not yet have been published by the time of the conference, although it may have been accepted for publication. Applicants to the prize do not have to apply to the 2025 YCC conference to be considered.
Acknowledgements and Questions
The Younger Comparativists Committee gratefully acknowledges the support of McGill University and the American Society of Comparative Law. Please direct all inquiries to the YCC Committee by email to ycc@ascl.org.
YCC Committee
Clare Ryan, Co-chair
Yueh-Ping (Alex) Yang, Co-Chair
Zehra Kavame Eroglu, Treasurer
Alan Koh, Committee Member
Akshat Agarwal, Committee Member