Paolo G. Carozza
Professor of Law
Concurrent Professor of Political Science
Staff Assistant: Claire Shely
SSRN: View
Paolo Carozza joined the Notre Dame Law School faculty in 1996. His expertise is in the areas of comparative constitutional law, human rights, law and development, and international law. From 2012-2022 he served as the Director of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, an interdisciplinary, university-wide institute focusing primarily on the themes of democracy and human development, where he was also the principal investigator of the Notre Dame Constitutionalism and Rule of Law Lab (CAROLL). In the Law School, he formerly served as Associate Dean for International and Graduate Programs, and as the Director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights from 2011 through 2013. He directed the Law School’s J.S.D. Program for more than 12 years, and is currently on the Advisory Board of the Notre Dame Global Human Rights Clinic. At Notre Dame, he is also a Faculty Fellow of the Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights, the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, the Institute for Educational Initiatives, the Pulte Institute for Global Development, and the Notre Dame Religious Liberty Initiative.
Carozza currently serves as a member of the Oversight Board, an independent expert body created by Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to render binding decisions and policy recommendations regarding difficult content moderation questions on Meta’s platforms. From 2019 to 2024 he was also the United States member of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission), the Council of Europe’s expert advisory body on issues of constitutionalism, the rule of law, democracy, and fundamental rights. In 2019-2020 he was a member of the U.S. State Department’s independent, nonpartisan, advisory Commission on Unalienable Rights. From 2006 to 2010 Carozza was a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the principal international body responsible for the promotion and protection of human rights in the Western Hemisphere, and served as its President in 2008-09. In 2009 he received the Order of Merit of Bernardo O’Higgins, the Republic of Chile’s highest state honor awarded to foreign citizens, in recognition of his service to the Inter-American human rights system.
Carozza was appointed by Pope Francis in 2016 to be an Academician of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. He has been a visiting professor at various universities in the United States, Europe, and Latin America, including as the John Harvey Gregory Lecturer on World Organization at Harvard Law School, and has been awarded doctorates honoris causae from the Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Hungary and from the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology (Berkeley, CA). In 2019, Notre Dame awarded Carozza its Reinhold Niebuhr Award, for Notre Dame faculty “whose body of academic work and life promote or exemplify the area of social justice in modern life,” and in 2023 received the Notre Dame Faculty Award, which “honors a faculty member who, in the opinion of his or her colleagues, has contributed outstanding service to the University.”
Carozza holds an AB from Harvard University and a JD from Harvard Law School, and was a postdoctoral Ford Foundation Fellow in Public International Law at Harvard Law School. After law school, he served as a judicial clerk for the Supreme Court of the Federated States of Micronesia and worked as an associate at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Arnold & Porter.
Watch the Notre Dame Fighting for Human Rights video featuring Carozza.
Courses Taught
LAW70401, International Law
LAW70405, Comparative Legal Traditions
LAW70418, Jurisprudence: Foundations of International Human Rights Law
LAW70419, Introduction to International Human Rights Law
LAW70835, Catholic Social Thought and Law
LAW73421, Regional Human Rights Protection
LAW73449, Comparative Constitutional Law
LAW 74383: The Regulation of Social Media
Scholarship
(For full list of works, see SSRN and Kresge Law Library pages)
Monographs and Edited Volumes
Dialogues on Italian Constitutional Justice: A Comparative Perspective (Routledge Press and Giappichelli Editore, 2020) (co-edited with Vittoria Barsotti, Marta Cartabia, and Andrea Simoncini)
The Practice of Human Development and Dignity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) (co-edited with Clemens Sedmak)
Italian Constitutional Justice in Global Context (Oxford University Press, 2016) (with Vittoria Barsotti, Marta Cartabia, and Andrea Simoncini)
Comparative Legal Traditions: Text, Materials And Cases On Western Law (West Academic Publishing, 4th ed., 2014) (with Mary Ann Glendon and Colin B. Picker)
Regional Protection of Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2013) (with Dinah Shelton)
Esperienza Elementare e Diritto (Guerini e Associati, 2011) (with Marta Cartabia, Andrea Simoncini, and Lorenza Violini)
Articles and Book Chapters
“La dignidad humana en el Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos y el caso Beatriz y otros vs. El Salvador,” in El aborto ante la corte IDH: a propósito del caso “Beatriz vs. El Salvador” 37-52 (Débora Ranieri de Cechini and Sofía Calderone, eds., Buenos Aires: El Derecho, 2024).
“Fundamental Rights and Fundamental Relationships: The Family in Comparative Constitutional Law,” in The Family As a Relational Good: The Challenge of Love 437-454 (Pierpaolo Donati ed., Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences 2022)
“National and Transnational Constitutionalism, and the Protection of Fundamental Human Rights,” in Nation, State, and Nation State (Vittorio Hösle ed., Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences 2020)
“Dialogue as Method,” in Vittoria Barsotti, Paolo G. Carozza, Marta Cartabia, and Andrea Simoncini, eds., Dialogues on Italian Constitutional Justice: A Comparative Perspective 1-24 (Routledge Press and Giappichelli Editore, 2020)
“Human Dignity and the Practice of Human Development,” in Paolo G. Carozza and Clemens Sedmak, eds., The Practice of Human Development and Dignity 1-24 (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020)
“The Insights and Transitions of Mary Ann Glendon,” in Great Christian Jurists in American History (Daniel Dreisbach and Mark David Hall, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2019)
“Extending the Research Orientation and Agenda for International and Comparative Studies in Catholic Education,” in International Studies in Catholic Education, Vol 11, No 2 (October 2019) (with T.J. D’Agostino)
“The Possibilities and Limits of International Human Rights Law to Foster Social Inclusion and Participation,” in Towards a Participatory Society: New Roads to Social and Cultural Integration 228 (Pierpalo Donati, ed., Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2018)
“The Structures of Development and the Structure of the Human Person,” in Questione sociale, questione mondiale: la permanente attualità del magistero di Paolo IV 63 (Ferdinando Citterio, ed., Vita e Pensiero, 2017)
“The Problematic Applicability of Subsidiarity to International Law,” 61 American Journal of Jurisprudence 51 (2016)
“The Anglo-Latin Divide and the Future of the Inter-American System of Human Rights,” Notre Dame Journal of International and Comparative Law 5:1, Article 6 (2015)
“On Solidarity in International Law,” a study commissioned by the Caritas in Veritate Foundation, (2014) (with Luigi Crema)
“The Right and the Good, and the Place of Freedom of Religion in Human Rights,” 40 Communio International Catholic Review, 456 (Summer-Fall 2013)
“Human Rights, Human Dignity, and Human Experience,” in Understanding Human Dignity 615 (Christopher McCrudden ed., Proceedings of the British Academy, 2013)
“Human Dignity,” in Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law 345 (Dinah Shelton ed., Oxford University Press, 2013)
“The Catholic Church, Human Rights and Democracy: Convergence and Conflict With the Modern State,” 15 Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 4:3 (2012) (with Daniel Philpott)
“Esboços históricos de uma tradição latino-americana da ideia de direitos humanos,” in A Realização e a Proteção Internacional dos Direitos Humanos Fundamentais—Desafios do Século XXI (Narciso Leandro Xavier Baez and Douglass Cassel eds., Editora Unoesc, 2011)
“Human Dignity in Constitutional Adjudication,” in Research Handbook in Comparative Law (Tom Ginsburg and Rosalind Dixon eds., Edward Elgar, 2011)
“I diritti umani, l'«arte» della democrazia e il «gusto per la libertà locale»,” in La Sostenibilità Della Democrazia Nel XXI Secolo (Marta Cartabia and Andrea Simoncini eds., Il Mulino, 2009)
“Il traffico dei diritti umani nell’età postmoderna,” in Il Traffico Dei Diritti Insaziabili (Luca Antonini ed., Rubbettino Editore, 2007)
“La perspectiva histórica del aporte latinoamericano al concepto de los derechos económicos, sociales y culturales,” in Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales en America Latina: Del Inventivo a la Herramienta (Alicia Ely Yamin ed., Centro Internacional de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo, 2006)
“The Universal Common Good and the Authority of International Law,” 9 Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 1:28 (2006)
“From Conquest to Constitutions: Retrieving a Latin American Tradition of the Idea of Human Rights,” 25 Human Rights Quarterly281 (2003)
“‘My Friend is a Stranger’: The Death Penalty and the Global Ius Commune of Human Rights,” 81 Texas Law Review 1031 (2003)
“Subsidiarity as a Structural Principle of International Human Rights Law,” 97 American Journal of International Law 38 (2003)
Areas of Expertise
- Comparative Constitutional Law
- Human Rights Law
- European Legal Traditions
- Latin American Legal Traditions
- Catholic Social Teaching
- International Law
- Law & Human Development
- Global freedom of expression and social media