Rachel A. Cichowski

Rachel Cichowski (Ph.D., University of California, Irvine) is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Political Science with a joint appointment in the Law, Societies and Justice Department at the University of Washington. She is adjunct faculty at UW in the School of Law, Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies and a member of the European Studies Faculty in the Jackson School of International Studies. Her visiting research positions include Visiting Scholar at the University of Barcelona (2018); Visiting Scholar at UCSD Laboratory on International Law & Regulation; Visiting Research Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy (1998-99), Visiting Fellow at the Max Planck Institute, Bonn, Germany (2000) and Program Director and Visiting Faculty at the UW Rome Center, Rome, Italy (2003, 2005).

Her primary research interests include international law and courts, comparative judicial politics and constitutionalism, international human rights, international organization, legal mobilization and global policy and development. Current research includes a collaborative project entitled Building Dynamic Research Communities in Global Legal Studies (with D. Brinks UT Austin and J. Staton Emory, funded by NSF SES # 1748180) and a project entitled Legal Mobilization and International Justice (funded by NSF SES #1322161) including the innovative database European Court of Human Rights Database (ECHRdb). Her books include, The European Court and Civil Society (Cambridge University Press, 2007), winner of the American Political Science Association’s 2008 Best Book Award, European Politics & Society Section) and co-edited Law, Politics and Society (Oxford University Press, 2003). She also edited a Special Issue of the journal Comparative Political Studies, entitled Courts, Democracy and Governance (2006). Her research is published in edited volumes and in various journals, including Law & Society Review, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, and Women & Politics. Cichowski teaches classes at both the undergraduate and PhD level in comparative and international law and politics; human rights; international organization; and global women’s human rights and policy.