2021 WOLFGANG FRIEDMANN MEMORIAL AWARD Recipient:

Justice Ruth Bader GINSburg

On April 1, 2021, the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law awarded the 47th Annual Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Professor Jane Ginsburg, Justice Ginsburg’s daughter and the Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary & Artistic Property Law at Columbia Law School, accepted the award on her behalf.

Since 1975, the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law has presented the Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award to a distinguished scholar or practitioner who has made outstanding contributions to the field of transnational law.

In addition to her extraordinary achievements in the realm of U.S. domestic jurisprudence as a litigator, judge, and advocate, Justice Ginsburg made an outstanding impact in the fields of international and comparative law and by interpreting U.S. jurisprudence in a global context. In the 1960s, she joined the Columbia Project on International Civil Procedure with Professor Hans Smit, lived in Sweden while researching Swedish Civil Procedure practices, and co-authored her book Civil Procedure in Sweden.

Throughout the rest of her impressive career, Justice Ginsburg continued to tenaciously promote the application of international and comparative legal perspectives into the interpretation of U.S. law. In Reed v. Reed, the very first matter that she briefed to the Supreme Court, she cited two cases from the West German Constitutional Court to bolster her argument that the preferential appointment of men over women as estate administrators constituted unconstitutional discrimination. Her determination to look beyond this nation’s borders to inform the law further manifested throughout her tenure as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. In Grutter v. Bollinger, her concurring opinion on the affirmative action issue cited prominent international human rights law, namely the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Finally, Justice Ginsburg remained a staunchly vocal advocate for integrating comparative perspectives into legal decisionmaking even during out-of-court appearances. In her speech to the International Academy of Comparative Law at American University in 2010, she emphasized how international law has become a legal foundation of the U.S.

Though she will be greatly missed by the Columbia community and the wider nation, her global legacy and impact will live on for years to come.