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    Louis B. Sohn Award for Public International Law

    In honor of Section Chair, Louis B. Sohn (1992-93), this award is presented to those persons who have made distinguished, long-standing contributions to the field of public international law.

    2025 Recipients

    Laurence Boisson de Chazournes

    Laurence Boisson de Chazournes is a professor of international law in Geneva with broad experience in international law and institutions, in particular regarding the environment, human rights and dispute settlement. She has served on the Administrative Tribunal for the Bank for International Settlements, as Senior Counsel at the World Bank in the environment division, on the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council, and as an advisor to the International Labour Organization and World Health Organization and to negotiations regarding international waterways (e.g., Senegal and Nile Rivers). She has extensive experience as an advocate, counsel and arbitrator across myriad dispute settlement bodies, including in the International Court of Justice, International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Permanent Court of Arbitration, Stockholm Chamber of Commerce Arbitration Centre, World Trade Organization, Court of Arbitration for Sports, and as counsel to the Neutral Expert under the Indus Water Treaty of 1960. She was President of the European Society of International Law and has been on many editorial and advisory boards, including those of the American Journal of International Law, the European Journal of International Law, the International Organizations Law Review, and the Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals.

    Gerold W. Libby

    Gerold W. Libby is a distinguished private practitioner who has a long history of leadership activity in the American Bar Association and other non-governmental organizations. He is a partner in Zuber Lawler LLP in Los Angeles, CA. He is former Chair of the ABA International Law Section and has represented the Section in the ABA House of Delegates. He serves as General Counsel and Secretary of the World Justice Project. He is the co-editor of the Section's best-selling book "Building the Rule of Law: Firsthand Accounts from a Thirty-Year Global Campaign." He has served as President of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association.

    Recipients

    • 2023—Edith Brown Weiss
    • 2021—Gay J. McDougall
    • 2020—Stephen McCaffrey
    • 2019—Hans Corell; Lucinda Low
    • 2018—Hon. Stephen Schwebel; Ved Nanda
    • 2017—Homer Moyer, Jr.
    • 2016—Bruce Rashkow
    • 2015—Hon. Joan Donoghue
    • 2014—Daniel Magraw
    • 2013—James R. Silkenat
    • 2012—Anne-Marie Slaughter
    • 2011—John F. Murphy
    • 2010—Jerome J. Shestack
    • 2009—James H. Carter, Jr.
    • 2008—Louis B. Henkin
    • 2007—Rosalyn Higgins
    • 2006—Hon. Thomas Buergenthal
    • 2005—Harold Koh
    • 2004—Arthur Helton 
    • 2000—Elliot Richardson