Phanor J. Eder Prize in Comparative Law

The Phanor J. Eder Prize is named after the first president of the American Society of Comparative Law. It is awarded in recognition of the best paper written by an undergraduate law student, J.D. or LL.B., in response to the Call for Papers for every annual meeting of the YCC. Submissions are open to any student writing on public or private comparative law, and the selected author will receive a stipend toward presenting their work at a YCC forum.

Prize Winners:

• 2024:
  • Recipient: Jasmine Oesterling, J.D. Candidate, University of Akron School of Law, “I Can’t Breathe”: A Comparison of Racial Inequity and Police Brutality in France and the United States
• 2023:
  • Recipient: Yahel Gerlic, University of Tel Aviv Faculty of Law, A New Dawn for Corporate Accountability in the Context of Transitional Justice: The Lafarge Case
  • Honorable Mention: Emily Kocher, University of North Carolina School of Law, If Germans Played American Football: Understanding the U.S. Case of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District through the Lens of German Jurisprudence
• 2022:
  • Recipient: Ian R. Maddox, J.D. Candidate ’23, University of North Carolina School of Law, South Africa’s Dormant Emergency Clause and the Value of an Emergency Constitution
• 2021:
  • Recipient: Jane Tien, Duke University School of Law, “Fighting Words: Catalonia at the Language Instructions Crossroads”
  • Honorable Mention: Robin Liu, Duke University School of Law, “Giving the People a Voice Where It Counts: A Presumption in Favor of Allowing Permanent Residents to Vote in Local Elections”
• 2020:
  • Recipient: Hayley N. Lawrence, Duke University School of Law, “A Comparative Study of the Political Question Doctrine: Cases of Political Failures in the United States and the United Kingdom”
  • Honorable Mention: Alexander Bednar, Duke University School of Law, “Democratic Backsliding and Attacks on an Independent Judiciary: A Comparative Analysis of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia”
• 2019:
  • Recipient: Emily Hazen, Gonzaga University School of Law, “Restructuring US Military Justice Through a Comparative Analysis of Israel Defense Forces”
  • Honorable Mention: Samridda Sen and Atreya Chakraborty, Department of Law, University of Calcutta, “Regulating Political Financing in India: A “Legal Perspective on the Case Study of Electoral Reform”
• 2018:
  • Recipient: Alec Duncan, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, “The Long Shadow of Constituent Power: An Historical Critique”
  • First Honorable Mention: Blake van Santen, Queen’s Law School, “The Separation of Powers in the United States and Canada”
  • Second Honorable Mention: Wei Xuan, National University of Singapore, “Fight or Flight? – Contextualizing Judicial Strategic Responses Towards Court-Curbing Measures in Indonesia and Singapore”
• 2017:
  • Recipient: Megan K. Bradley, J.D. Candidate, 2018, Florida State University College of Law, “The Failure of Fact Pleading in the American System: Why the Convergence of Pleading Standards is Not Working and Comparative Solutions to How it Can be Fixed”
  • First Honorable Mention: Jaka Kukavica, LL.B. Candidate, 2017, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Law, Slovenia, “National Consensus and the Eighth Amendment: Is There Something to be Learned from the United States Supreme Court”
  • Second Honorable Mention: Shir Fulga, J.D. Candidate, 2018, Queen’s University, Faculty of Law, Canada, ““…And Democratic”: Israeli Constitutional Law Through Canadian Eyes”
• 2016:
  • Recipient: Thomas Patrick, Boston College Law School, “The Zeitgeist of Secession Amidst the March Toward Unification: Scotland, Catalonia, and the Future of the European Union” 
  • First Honorable Mention: Tierney O’Rourke, Stanford Law School, “Judicial Independence and Foreign Investment:  The Argentine Experience” 
  • Second Honorable Mention: Rachel Schatz, Tulane University Law School, “Forum Non Conveniens and the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act:  The Seventh Circuit Illustrates the Art of Rejecting Jurisdiction”
• 2015:
  • Recipient: Tom Brower, J.D. Candidate, University of Virginia School of Law, “Constitutions as Counter-Curses: Revenue Allocation Institutions and the Resource Curse”
  • First Honorable Mention: Philip M. Thoennes, J.D. Candidate, Lewis & Clark Law School, “Eo Nomine: The Divergence of State and Foreign Immunity”
  • Second Honorable Mention: Julian Yang, J.D. Candidate, Queen’s University Faculty of Law, “Comparative Analysis of Merger Control Under Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law”
• 2014:
  • Recipient: Tom Brower, J.D. Candidate, University of Virginia School of Law, “The Tide of the Times? A Sectoral Approach to Latin America’s Resistance to the Investor-State Arbitration System”
  • First Honorable Mention: Geoffrey Yeung, LL.B. Candidate, Hong Kong University Faculty of Law, “Religious Exemptions in Sexual Orientation Anti-Discrimination Laws: A Comparative Study”
  • Second Honorable Mention: Lawrence David, BCL/LL.B. Candidate, McGill University Faculty of Law, “Subnational Constitutionalism and the Concurrent Protection of Religious Freedom: Canada-Quebec Federalism”
• 2013:
  • Recipient: Yaron Nili, S.J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School, “Missing the Forest for the Trees: A New Approach to Shareholder Activism”
  • Honorable Mentions:
    • Alan Koh, LL.B. candidate, National University of Singapore Faculty of Law, LL.M. candidate, Boston University School of Law, “Appraising Japan’s Appraisal Remedy”
    • Zhao Chen, J.S.D. Candidate, Washington University—St. Louis, “The Interpretation of ‘Public Use’ in the United States and China and its Relation to Economic Development”
    • Scott Stephenson, J.S.D. Candidate, Yale Law School, “Is the New Commonwealth Model of Constitutionalism Exportable?”
• 2012:
  • In 2012 the YCC awarded a prize to the best paper presented at its first Annual Conference that year to Jill I. Goldenziel, Harvard University, for her paper “Veiled Political Questions: Islamic Dress, Constitutionalism, and the Ascendance of Courts”