Jamie Mayerfeld is Professor of Political Science and Adjunct Professor in Law, Societies, and Justice at the University of Washington, where he is also a faculty associate of the Center for Human Rights and an associate faculty member of the Program on Ethics. He has received fellowships from Columbia Law School, Princeton University, and the University of Washington Simpson Center for the Humanities.
Mayerfeld specializes in political theory and human rights. He is the author most recently of The Promise of Human Rights: Constitutional Government, Democratic Legitimacy, and International Law (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). In this book, he develops an account of constitutional democracy as a cooperative project enlisting both domestic and international guardians to strengthen the protection of human rights. His other publications include Suffering and Moral Responsibility (Oxford University Press, 1999) and articles on various topics in political theory, moral philosophy, human rights, and international criminal law.
Mayerfeld has taught courses on the history of political thought; democratic theory; contemporary theories of justice; nationalism; human rights theory; freedom of speech and religion; capitalism, socialism, and the climate; the philosophy of punishment; human rights law; US constitutional law; and US detention policy in Guantanamo Bay. In 2019-20, he was president of the Western Political Science Association (WPSA), and subsequently chaired the WPSA Climate Action Committee.
