MacArthur Foundation Chair in International Justice and Human Rights
Professor of Law
Special Advisor for Strategic Planning and Values to the EVC/P (2023-24)
UCLA Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (2020-23)
- B.A. Denison University, 1999
- J.D. Harvard Law School, 2004
- UCLA Faculty Since 2020
Anna Spain Bradley holds the MacArthur Foundation Chair in International Justice and Human Rights and is a Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. She serves as Faculty Director of The Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA and has over a decade of continuous leadership experience in higher education, including prior service as UCLA’s Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.
Professor Spain Bradley’s research focuses on international law, human rights and peace. She is the author of Global Racism: A Challenge for the World (Oxford University Press, forthcoming October 2026), articulating racism as a universally available form of oppression operating on a global scale that poses a serious threat to humanity. The book builds upon her law review article Human Rights Racism (2019) identifying racism as an undefined violation of human rights under international law. Spain Bradley’s first book Human Choice in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2021) challenges traditional assumptions about rationality in legal decision making by introducing insights from neuroscience to the study of international legal and political decision making. She is also co-editor of International Dispute Resolution (3rd ed., Carolina Academic Press, 2021) and the author of numerous law review articles and essays on the United Nations Security Council, international courts, and the peaceful resolution of disputes. Professor Spain Bradley’s scholarship has been recognized with the 2018 Gamm Justice Award for outstanding contributions to justice and the 2014 Francis Lieber Award from the American Society of International Law for exceptional scholarship on the law of war. Her current scholarly projects examine the legal history and doctrinal development of racism in international law, judicial emotion at the International Court of Justice, and the future of peace and world order. She advances her research through collaborations with the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and the University of Hamburg’s Institute of Law and Economics.
At UCLA Law, Professor Spain Bradley teaches International Dispute Resolution, International Human Rights, The Law of Peace, and a new seminar on Recentering International Law: Black Traditions, TWAIL and Other Critical Perspectives.
Professor Spain Bradley has a distinguished record of public service and international leadership. In 2024, she was appointed by President Joseph R. Biden to the World Bank ICSID Panel of Conciliators. In 2021, she was appointed as a Legal Expert to the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee addressing the prevention of racist and xenophobic discrimination. That year, she was also elected Vice President of the American Society of International Law and previously served on its Executive Council for two terms. She served as Vice Chair of the Academic Council of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Before joining UCLA, Professor Spain Bradley was a Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School and was the inaugural Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity. Earlier in her career, she represented states as counsel before the Permanent Court of Arbitration and served as an Attorney-Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, where she received two Meritorious Honor Awards for her work before the Iran–U.S. Claims Tribunal and the United Nations Compensation Commission. She held positions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, focusing on climate policy and international trade. Professor Spain Bradley holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. magna cum laude from Denison University and clerked for the Honorable Judge Raymond L. Finch of the U.S. District Court of the Virgin Islands.
Bibliography
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Books
- Global Racism: A Challenge for the World. Oxford University Press (forthcoming October 2026).
- Human Choice in International Law. Cambridge University Press (2021). Book info
- International Dispute Resolution: Cases and Materials (with Mary Ellen O’Connell and Amy J. Cohen). 3rd ed. Carolina Academic Press (2021). Book Info
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Articles And Chapters
- Judicial Emotion at the International Court of Justice. (work in progress)
- Advancing Neuroscience in International Law, in International Law as Behavior, (edited by Harlan Cohen and Timothy Meyer, Cambridge University Press, 2021). Full Text
- Human Rights Racism, 32 Harvard Human Rights Journal 1 (2019). Full Text
- The Disruptive Neuroscience of Judicial Choice, 9 UC Irvine Law Review 1 (2018). Full Text
- Cognitive Competence in Executive-Branch Decision Making, 49 Connecticut Law Review 713 (2017). Full Text
- African Women Leaders and the Advancement of Peacebuilding in International Law, in Black Women and International Law: Deliberate Interactions, Movements And Actions, 120 (edited by Jeremy Levitt, Cambridge University Press, 2015). Full Text
- Deciding to Intervene, 51 Houston Law Review 847 (2014). Full Text
- The U.N. Security Council’s Duty to Decide, 4 Harvard National Security Journal 320 (2013). Full Text
- International Dispute Resolution in an Era of Globalization in International Law, in The New Age of Globalization, 41 (edited by Andrew Byrnes, Mika Hayashi, and Christopher Michaelsen, Martinus Nijhoff Publications, 2013). Full Text
- Beyond Adjudication: Resolving International Resource Disputes in an Era of Climate Change, 30 Stanford Environmental Law Journal 343 (2011).
- Examining the International Judicial Function: International Courts as Dispute Resolvers, 34 Loyola Of Los Angeles International And Comparative Law Review 5 (2011). Full Text
- Integration Matters: Rethinking the Architecture of International Dispute Resolution, 32 University Of Pennsylvania Journal Of International Law 1 (2010). Reprinted in part in International Dispute Resolution: Cases And Materials (edited by Mary Ellen O’Connell, Carolina Academic Press, 2012). Full Text
- Using International Dispute Resolution to Address the Compliance Question in International Law, 40 Georgetown Journal of International Law 807 (2009).
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Book Reviews
- Book Review, 112 American Journal of International Law 330 (2018). Review of The Internationalists: How A Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World, by Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro (Simon & Schuster, 2017).
- Book Review, 111 American Journal of International Law 210 (2017). Review of The Puzzle of Peace, by Gary Goertz, Paul F. Diehl, and Alexandru Balas (Oxford University Press, 2016).
- Book Review, 108 American Journal of International Law 140 (2014). Review of Diplomatic and Judicial Means of Dispute Settlement, edited by Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Marcelo G. Kohen and Jorge E. Vinûales (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2013).
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Short Commentaries
- “A Historic Day”: the World Court’s Big Climate Opinion. Legal Planet (2025). Full Text
- The Meaning of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in International Law, American Branch of the International Law Association (ABILA) International Law Weekend Annual Conference (October 29, 2021). Available Here
- Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: Whither human rights?. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science, Technology and Human Rights Virtual Conference (October 21, 2021) Available Here
- ASIL Women in International Law Career Roundtable. American Society of International Law (October 19, 2021). Available Here
- Combatting Global Racism Now. Wisconsin Int’l Law Journal Symposium on International Law and Racial Justice (April 8, 2021). Available Here
- BLM and International Human Rights Law Remarks by Anna Spain Bradley, American Society of International Law Proceedings of the 115th Annual Meeting 281-83 (2021). Available Here
- UCLA Wolfenstein Memorial Lecture: Reckoning with Global Racism. UCLA Political Science Department, (March 16, 2021). Available Here
- Combatting Global Racism: A Human Rights Perspective. John P. Morris Memorial Lecture, Arizona State University School of Law (March, 15, 2021). Available Here
- International Law’s Racism Problem, Opinio Juris (Sept. 4, 2019). Full Text
- Mock Debate: Is the Primacy of the ICJ in International Dispute Settlement in Decline?, Report by Chester Brown, American Society of International Law Proceedings of the 110th Annual Meeting 191 (2016).
- Judges, Diplomats, and Peacebuilders: Evaluating International Dispute Resolution as a System, American Society Of International Law Proceedings of the 108th Annual Meeting 271 (2015). Available Here
- Sovereignty and the Promotion of Peace in Non-International Armed Conflict, American Society of International Law Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting 78 (2013).
- Who’s Going to Copenhagen: The Rise of Civil Society in International Treaty-Making, American Society of International Law Insights (Dec. 11, 2009).
- The Many Pathways of International Law, in Careers in International Law: A Guide to Career Paths and Internships in International Law (American Society of International Law, 2009-2010 edition).
- Guest Blogger, IntLawGrrls (2009-2014). Available here