Ayelet Shachar (LL.M., J.S.D, Yale Law School) is the Irving G. and Eleanor D. Tragen Chair in Comparative Law, University of California, Berkeley. Trained in law and political theory, she specializes in the comparative study of citizenship and immigration law, the fraught relations between human rights and territorial conceptions of sovereignty, the transnational architecture governing the mobility of the highly skilled (brilliant artists, eminent scientists, and elite athletes), and the puzzles that explain contemporary transformations of citizenship at the intersection of states and markets.
Shachar is the author of over 100 articles and book chapters, as well as several major books, including Multicultural Jurisdictions: Cultural Differences and Women’s Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2001 & 2009), for which she won the American Political Science Association 2002 Foundations of Political Theory Section Best First Book Award. This work has inspired a new generation of thinking about how to best mitigate the tensions between gender equality and religious diversity. It has also proved influential in actual public policy and legislative debates. It has been cited by, among others, England’s Archbishop of Canterbury (who described her work as “highly original and significant”) and the Supreme Court of Canada. Over the last twenty years, Multicultural Jurisdictions has become a key reference point for feminist approaches to the study of law and religion.
Her next book, The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality (Harvard University Press, 2009) also created a groundswell of interest among policymakers and academics alike. It was named 2010 International Ethics Notable Book in recognition of its “superior scholarship and contribution to the field of international ethics.” The “birthright lottery,” a concept developed in this work, has gone global and is featured regularly in scholarly debates and policy reports about migration, citizenship, golden passports, and unequal access to asylum protection mechanisms.
Professor Shachar is the lead editor of the field-defining Oxford Handbook of Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2017 & 2020), which has emerged as a major reference work in the field for those engaged with citizenship from a philosophical, political, and legal perspective. This work has been hailed as “The definitive source on a critical concept in political and social life. Innovative in its conception and authoritative in its execution.”
Published just days before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, The Shifting Border: Legal Cartographies of Migration and Mobility (Critical Power Series, Manchester University Press, 2020; shortlisted for the 2022 C.B. Macpherson Prize), explores the legal strategies that have allowed the border to break away from the map. It has been described as “a remarkable book. Essential for understanding government responses to people on the move, Shachar’s vivid description, analytical precision, and reasoned persuasion combine to challenge conventional wisdom about ‘borders’ and how they work. The result: exceptional insights into how migration control can be more just. The Shifting Border offers an indispensable roadmap to immigration and refugee debates all around the world.” Here, as in her previous writings, Shachar not only reveals the deep currents that are reshaping the terrain of law and mobility but also seeks to develop innovative legal responses to break the current deadlock as she seeks to refute the claim that applicable solutions are beyond reach or impossible to imagine.
“Reading this essay by Shachar…is like getting the dream dinner invitation to hear cutting-edge thought on borders” (Choice Magazine).
Together with Seyla Benhabib, she convened a series of transnational workshops culminating in the publication of Lawless Zones, Rightless Subjects: Migration, Asylum, and Shifting Borders (Cambridge University Press, 2025).
Beyond contributing to key scholarly debates, Shachar has provided pro-bono consultation to judges, non-governmental organizations, the European Parliament Research Service, and the World Bank. She is an Honorary Professor at Goethe University Frankfurt Faculty of Law and Normative Orders Research Centre where she leads the Transformations of Citizenship Research Group.
Shachar’s research has influenced law and policymakers, inspired key academic debates, and has been recognized by national and international research excellence award. She has held distinguished visiting professorships at Harvard, Stanford, and McGill and has delivered public lectures on her research in a range of academic, policy, and popular venues across the globe.
In 2014, she was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC). In 2015, she became Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. In 2017, she was elected member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities (past famous members include the Brothers Grimm and Gauss the mathematician). In 2019, she was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, one of Europe’s most prestigious research awards, for her groundbreaking work on citizenship and the legal frameworks of accommodation in multicultural societies.
In 2024, Shachar was awarded the American Political Science Association (APSA) Migration & Citizenship Career Achievement Award. “One of the most notable aspects of Shachar’s career is that she has managed to shift the scholarly paradigms we use to understand big questions about migration, citizenship and belonging,” states the award citation. “Her considerable corpus of published work has influenced every corner of our field.” Shachar is the first woman and the youngest scholar to have earned this accolade.
Education
J.S.D. (Doctor of the Science of Law), Yale Law School (1997)
LL.M. (Master of Laws), Yale Law School (1995)
LL.B. (Bachelor of Laws), Tel Aviv University (1993)
B.A. (Political Science), Tel Aviv University (1993)
Ayelet Shachar is not teaching any Law courses in Spring 2025.