Alison Dundes Renteln
University of Southern California
Rate Professor Alison Dundes Renteln
The most knowledgeable, compassion and well researched legal/ academic scholars I have ever met. Both a trained academic professor and lawyer, Alison's intellectual interests focuses on cutting edge academic subjects of human and gender rights to which others dare not to explore. Her research is original, well-analyzed and reflects the true moral, ethical and legal belief that the rule of law, or accepted universal norms, jus cogens, are universally binding obligation not only upon sovern domestic actors, but international governing institutions as well. Her thinking and body of intellectual work reflects the very best among the world top scholars. LtCol Ken Graham, USMC ret.
About Alison
Alison Dundes Renteln is a Professor of Political Science and Anthropology at the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, holding joint appointments at the Gould School of Law and the Sol Price School of Public Policy. She teaches Law and Public Policy with an emphasis on international law and human rights. A graduate of Harvard University with a B.A. in History and Literature of Modern Europe in 1981, she received an M.A. in 1985 and a Ph.D. in Jurisprudence and Social Policy in 1987 from the University of California, Berkeley, followed by a J.D. from the USC Gould School of Law in 1991. Renteln previously served as Director of the Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics and Vice-Chair of the Department of Political Science.
Her research interests encompass international human rights, particularly cultural rights, comparative law, constitutional law, American politics, political and legal theory, and legal anthropology. Renteln has authored key publications including The Cultural Defense (Oxford University Press, 2004), which earned the 2006 USC Phi Kappa Phi Award for Creativity in Research; International Human Rights: Universalism Versus Relativism (Sage Publications, 1990; reissued by Quid Pro, 2013); and Cultural Law: International, Comparative, and Indigenous (Cambridge University Press, 2010, co-authored). She has co-edited volumes such as Global Bioethics and Human Rights (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020) and published over 70 articles and numerous book chapters. Among her honors are the USC Associates Award for Excellence in Teaching (2005), the Dornsife Raubenheimer Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research, and Service (2022), a Fulbright Specialist Program award (2022), a residency at the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (2013), and a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship at the World Bank (2024-2025). Renteln collaborated with the United Nations on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, taught comparative legal ethics for the American Bar Association in Asia, and serves on the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the Board of Directors of the International Law Association American Branch, and the Board of Trustees of the Law and Society Association.
Professional Email: arenteln@usc.edu