ASCL Prizes

Colin B. Picker Graduate Prize

Awarded in recognition of the best paper submitted by a graduate student to the annual YCC Global Conference. Named in honor of the founding chair of the YCC.

Prize Winners:

  • 2024
    • Recipient: Akshat Agarwal, J.S.D. Candidate, Yale Law School, The Promise of Constitutional Parents’ Rights
    • Honorable Mention: Pavithra Rajendran, J.S.D. Candidate, Notre Dame Law School, Butterfly Effects: Women and Criminal Law
  • 2023
    • Recipient: Rama Hyeweon Kim, S.J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School, Historicizing Same-Sex Marriage Debate in the Periphery: Savigny, Nakagawa, and the Korean Marriage
    • Honorable Mention: Sam Bookman, S.J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School, and Matthias Petel, S.J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School, Climate Litigation & Climate Justice: The Distributional Implications of Rights-Based Climate Actions
  • 2022:
    • Recipient: Sam Bookman, S.J.D. Candidate & Byse Fellow, Harvard Law School, “Three Constitutional Responses to Environmental Crises (Or, What We Talk About When We Talk About ‘Environmental Constitutionalism’)”
    • Honorable Mentions:
      • Jonathan Brosseau-Rioux, Ph.D. Candidate, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and McGill University, “A Jurisdictional Framework for Resolving ‘Ethical’ Issues Related to Party Representation: Distinguishing the Procedural from the Deontological”
      • Sandra M.T. Magalang, J.S.D. Candidate, Yale Law School, and Ana Beatriz Robalinho, J.S.D. Candidate, Yale Law School, “A Roadmap to Democratic Backsliding: Lessons from the Global South”
  • 2021:
    • Recipient: Weilin Xiao, J.S.D. Candidate, Yale Law School, “Expansion and Restriction: A Comparative Study of Modernization of Family Laws in Japan and China, 1868-1930”
    • Honorable Mention: Ernesto Vargas Weil, Ph.D. student and Associate Lecturer (Teaching), The University College London (UCL) Faculty of Laws, “The Numerus Clausus as a Constitutional Rule of Property Law: a Macro-Comparative Approach”
  • 2020:
    • Recipient: Yiran Zhang, S.J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School, “Rethinking the Global Governance of Migrant Domestic Workers: The Heterodox Case of Informal Filipina Workers in China”
    • Honorable Mention: Emre Turkut, Ph.D. Candidate, Ghent University, “Emergency Powers, Constitutional (Self-) Restraint and Judicial Politics: The Turkish Constitutional Court in an Authoritarian Setting”
  • 2019:
    • Recipient: Achalie M. Kumarage, American University, “Oversimplifying Legal Realities: Gender Indicators and Aspiring Law Reforms Based on Skewed Outcomes”
    • Honorable Mention: Rafi Reznik, Georgetown University, “Purposive Originalism: The Rise of American Conservatism in Israel”
  • 2018:
    • Recipient: Alan Koh, National Singapore University, “Shareholder Protection in Close Corporations: The Curious Case of Japan”
  • 2017:
    • Recipient: Dustin Klaudt, Osgoode Hall Law School, “Can Canada’s “Living Tree” Constitution and Lessons From Foreign Climate Litigation Seed Climate Justice and Remedy Climate?”
    • Honorable Mentions:
      • Daniele D’Alvia, Birkbeck, University of London, “The Remarkable Story of SPACs Between a Legal Standardised Regulation and a Standardisation by Market Practices”
      • Yincheng Hsu, University of Glasgow, “Virtual Cultures, Cultural Rights and Self-regulation”
      • Anna Lukina, Hertford College, University of Oxford, “Russia v ECtHR – Resistance or Dialogue: a Comparative Analysis”
  • 2016:
    • Recipient: Soterios Loizou, University of Cambridge and Harvard Law School, “Deconstructing Second Parallel Legal Regimes:  The Peculiar Case of Applying Foreign Law”
    • Honorable Mentions:
      • Doron Dorfman, Stanford Law School, “The Inaccessible Road to Motherhood—The Tragic Consequence of Not Having Reproductive Policies for Israelis with Disabilities” 
      • Vera Korzun, Fordham University School of Law, “Arbitrating Antitrust Claims: From Suspicion to Trust”
  • 2015:
    • Recipient: Katharine Schmidt, Yale Law School, “De-Naturalizing ‘American Legal Exceptionalism’: Early 20th Century Trans-Atlantic Divergences and Contemporary Comparative Law Scholarship”
    • Honorable  Mentions:
      • Shoaib Ghias, University of California, Berkeley School of Law, “Defining Shari’a: Stoning and the Politics of Islamic Judicial Review”
      • Benjamin Chen & Li Zhiyu, University of California, Berkeley School of Law, “Who May Sue the One-Party Dominated State”
  • 2014:
    • Recipient: Gilat Bachar, J.S.D. Candidate, Stanford University, “The Occupation of the Law: Power Dynamics Between the Israeli Judiciary and Legislature Over Controlling Palestinians’ Tort Claims Against IDF”
    • Honorable Mentions:
      • Itay Ravid, J.S.D. Candidate, Stanford University, “Watch & Learn”: Illegal Behavior and Obedience to Legal Norms Through the Eyes of Popular Culture: The Case of Popular American and Israeli TV Shows”
      • Alan K. Koh & Chun Zhou, LL.M. Candidate, Boston University; Ph.D. Candidate, Peking University, “Enforcing Corporate Governance in China: Or Why We Should Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the CSRC”