Ayelet Shachar

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, Shachar’s areas of interest include American and comparative immigration law and policy, citizenship theory, borders and human rights, international and transnational law, jurisprudence and legal theory, and women’s rights and religious diversity.

She is the author of more than 100 articles and several award-winning books, including Multicultural Jurisdictions: Cultural Differences and Women’s Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2001)—winner of American Political Science Association Foundations of Political Theory Best First Book Award; The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality (Harvard University Press, 2009) named International Ethics Notable Book in recognition of its “superior scholarship and contribution to the field of international ethics;” and The Shifting Border: Legal Cartographies of Migration and Mobility (Critical Power Series, Manchester University Press, 2020)—shortlisted for the 2022 C.B. Macpherson Prize). Shachar is also the lead editor of the field-defining Oxford Handbook of Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2017 & 2020). 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).

Her work has been cited by, among others, England’s Archbishop of Canterbury (who described Shachar’s work as “highly original and significant”) and the Supreme Court of Canada. Beyond contributing to key scholarly debates, Shachar has delivered public lectures on her research in a range of academic, public policy, and general audience venues worldwide. She has been an occasional contributor to The New York Times’ “Room for Debate” Forum and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio showcase program, IDEAS.

Shachar has provided pro bono consultation to judges, non-governmental organizations, the European Parliament Research Service, and the World Bank. She is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the Leibniz Prize, Germany’s most prestigious research award. In 2024, Shachar was awarded the American Political Science Association (APSA) Migration & Citizenship Section Career Achievement Award; she is the first woman and youngest scholar to have earned this accolade.