The Student Deak Award is sponsored by Oxford University Press for the best international law student article in a student-edited law journal. The award honors Francis Deak, a WWII veteran who wrote extensively on international law. The award is the student equivalent of the prize separately awarded by the American Journal of International Law to a younger author for meritorious scholarship in the prior year's volume of the Journal.

Students, professors, practitioners or other persons in the legal community may nominate students for the Deak Award. A student may even nominate his own article.

ILSA is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2023 Student Deak Award, for the best student-written law review article, is Jiang Zhifeng of the National University of Singapore. Jiang’s winning article, “Pacta Sunt Servanda and Empire: A Critical Examination of the Evolution, Invocation, and Application of an International Law Axiom,” was published in Volume 43, Issue 3 of the Michigan Journal of International Law and is available for download on the Journal’s website.

ILSA awards the Student Deak Award annually to the author of the best student-written international law article in a student-edited law journal. The winning article is selected by a panel of international legal academic experts from among all the nominated articles.

Details about the 2024 edition will be released shortly.

Any questions about the award may be directed to [email protected].

ILSA is now accepting nominations for the 2024 Student Deak Award. The Student Deak Award is given annually to the best international law student article in a student-edited law journal. The award honors Francis Deak, a WWII veteran who wrote extensively on international law. The award is the student corollary to the Deak Prize separately awarded by the American Journal of International Law to a younger author for meritorious scholarship in the prior year’s volume of the Journal.

Students, professors, practitioners or other persons in the legal community may nominate students for the Deak Award. Student may also self-nominate.

Per award rules, the nominee must have been a student at the time the article was written, and the article must have been published in a student-edited journal during the award year (2023). All nominations satisfying these criteria will be considered by the awards committee who will choose the winning submission. Nominations should be submitted to [email protected] no later than 15 January 2024. All nominations must include the article citation and article in PDF format along with the name and email address of the author.

The award will be presented at the American Society of International Law’s 2024 Annual Meeting which will be held 3-6 April 2024 in Washington, DC.