Anna Spain Bradley

Professor of Law
Faculty Director, The Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA
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 is a Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of The Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA (with locations at UCLA Law and in Europe). She previously served as UCLA’s Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and Special Advisor on Strategic Planning and Values.

An expert in international law, international dispute resolution and human rights, Professor Spain Bradley’s current research focuses on two areas: the legal history and doctrinal development of racism in international law and the study of emotion in international judicial thought. She is the author of Global Racism: A Challenge for the World (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2026), which examines the globalization of racism through ideology, building upon her Human Rights Racism article (Harvard Human Rights Journal, 2019) naming racism as an undefined violation of international human rights. Her first book, Human Choice in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2021) introduced insights from neuroscience to the study of international legal and political decision-making, illustrating how factors like emotion, bias and empathy can influence and ultimately shape international law. She is the co-editor of International Dispute Resolution 3rd ed. (Carolina Academic Press, with Mary Ellen O’Connell and Amy J. Cohen, 2021) and has written numerous research publications about the United Nations Security Council, the role of international courts and the peaceful resolution of disputes. She is the recipient of the 2018 Gamm Justice Award “for outstanding written work addressing critical issues in justice” and the 2014 American Society of International Law’s Francis Lieber Award for “exceptional writing that enhances the law of war” for The U.N. Security Council’s Duty to Decide (Harvard National Security Journal, 2013). Professor Spain Bradley advances her research in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law as a member of its Transdisciplinary U FEEL Council and as a member of the University of Hamburg’s Institute of Law and Economics.

Professor Spain Bradley teaches courses on International Dispute Resolution, International Human Rights, and Laws of Peace and a seminar on Recentering International Law: Black Traditions, TWAIL and Other Critical Perspectives.

Professor Spain Bradley has a distinguished record of service as a diplomat and as a leader in the field of international law. In 2024, United States President Joseph Biden appointed her to serve on the World Bank ICSID Panel of Conciliators for a six-year term. In 2021, the United Nations appointed Spain Bradley as Legal Expert to the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards on the prevention of racist and xenophobic discrimination. She is an elected life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was elected to serve as Vice President of the American Society of International Law (two terms), as a member of the Society’s Executive Council (two terms), and as Vice Chair of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration’s Academic Council. She has represented nations as legal counsel before the Permanent Court of Arbitration and served as Attorney-Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, where she earned two Meritorious Honor Awards for her work representing the U.S. before the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal and as a delegate to the United Nations Compensation Commission. Spain Bradley previously worked on climate change policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and international trade agreements at the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office. Professor Spain Bradley is a founding member and former Board member of Mediators Beyond Borders International and a former Board member of Collaborative Dispute Resolution Associates in Boulder, CO. 

Prior to coming to UCLA, Professor Spain Bradley was a Professor of Law at the University of Colorado, Boulder where she served as the inaugural Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School (J.D.) and Denison University (B.A. magna cum laude) and clerked for the Honorable Judge Raymond Finch of the U.S. District Court of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Bibliography

  • Books
    • Global Racism: A Challenge for the World. Oxford University Press (forthcoming 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
  • 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).
  • 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).
  • Short Commentaries
    • “A Historic Day”: the World Court’s Big Climate Opinion. Legal Planet (2024). 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

Courses Available

LAW 268

International Dispute Resolution
LAW 273

International Human Rights Law
LAW 598

Recentering International Law: Black Traditions, TWAIL and Other Critical Perspectives
Events
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