Mark L. Movsesian

Frederick A. Whitney Professor of Contract LawDirector, Mattone Center for Law and Religion
Harvard College (summa cum laude)Harvard Law School (magna cum laude)

Professor Movsesian is the Frederick A. Whitney Professor of Contract Law and Director of the Mattone Center for Law and Religion. His work has appeared in the Harvard, North Carolina, and Washington & Lee Law Reviews, the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, the American Journal of International Law, the Harvard International Law Journal, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the Virginia Journal of International Law, and many other journals, and has been cited by the United States Supreme Court. He has been a visiting professor at Notre Dame and Cardozo Law Schools and has delivered papers at numerous workshops in the United States and Europe. He teaches offerings in contracts, law and religion, comparative law, and federal courts.

Professor Movsesian graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. In law school, he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and a recipient of the Sears Prize, awarded to the two highest-ranking students in the second-year class. He clerked for Justice David H. Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States and served as an attorney-advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel at the United States Department of Justice. Before starting at St. John's, he was the Max Schmertz Distinguished Professor of Law at Hofstra.

Professor Movsesian serves on the board of editors of the Journal of Law and Religion (Cambridge). He posts regularly at First Things, the Law and Religion Forum, the Library of Law and Liberty, and the Volokh Conspiracy, and co-hosts the Legal Spirits podcast series. 

Christians and U.S. Policy on Armenia: Historically and Todayin ARMENIA AND THE COMMUNITY OF STATES: THE PURSUIT OF DEVELOPMENT AFTER THE CONFLICTS IN POST- SOVIET SPACE (Georgi Asatryan, ed.) (Rowman & Littlefield) (forthcoming 2024)

Book Review, Religious Liberty and the American Founding, 38 J.L. & Religion (forthcoming 2023)

The New Thoreaus, 54 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 539 (2023) (symposium contribution)

State-of-the-Field Essay, Law, Religion, and the COVID-19 Crisis, 37 J.L. & Religion 9 (2022)

Masterpiece Cakeshop and the Future of Religious Freedom42 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 711 (2019)

The Limits of Doux Commerce, 9 Wm. & Mary Bus. L. Rev. 449 (2018) (symposium contribution)

Of Human Dignities, 91 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1517 (2016).

Defining Religion in American Law: Psychic Sophie and the Rise of the Nones,EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE WORKING PAPER SERIES, RSCAS 2014/19 (2014)

Book Review: Religion without God, 9 RELIGION & HUMAN RIGHTS 93 (2014)

Introduction: State-Sponsored Religious Displays in the U.S. and Europe, 52 J. CATH. LEGAL STUD. 1 (2013) (symposium introduction)

Samuel A. Alito, in  THE JUSTICES OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT: THEIR LIVES AND MAJOR OPINIONS (Leon Friedman & Fred I. Israel eds.) (revised ed. 2013)

Crosses and Culture: State-Sponsored Religious Displays in the US and Europe, 1 Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 338 (2012)

The Price of Ottoman Failure, Oasis (7:14) (December 2011) (symposium contribution),

Introduction: Religious Legal Theory Symposium, 85 St. John's L. Rev. 397 (2011) (symposium contribution)

Foreword: Laïcité in Comparative Perspective, 49 J. Cath. Legal Stud. 1 (2010) (symposium contribution)

Elusive Equality: The Armenian Genocide and the Failure of Ottoman Legal Reform, 4 U. St. Thomas J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 1 (2010) (symposium contribution)

Fiqh and Canons: Reflections on Islamic and Christian Jurisprudence, 40 Seton Hall L. Rev. 861 (2010) (symposium contribution)

International Commercial Arbitration and International Courts, 18 Duke J. Comp. & Int’l L. 423 (2008) (symposium contribution)

Judging International Judgments, 48 Va. J. Int'l L. 65 (2007)

Williston as Conservative-Pragmatist, 32 Southern Ill. U.L.J. 135 (2007) (symposium contribution)

Formalism in American Contract Law: Classical and Contemporary, 12 Ius Gentium 115 (2006) (symposium contribution)

A Good Idea, 33 Hofstra L. Rev. 1121 (2005) (symposium introduction)

The Sutherland Report and Dispute Settlement, 2 Int'l Org. L. Rev. 201 (2005) (symposium contribution)

Rediscovering Williston, 62 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 207 (2005)

Against Global Governance in the WTO, 45 Harv. Int’l L.J. 353 (2004) (with John O. McGinnis) (reprinted in ICFAI J. Int’l Bus. L. (July 2005) (India))

International Decisions – United States Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000, 98 Am. J. Int’l L. 150 (2004)

Enforcement of WTO Rulings: An Interest Group Analysis, 32 Hofstra L. Rev. 1 (2003) (essay)

Two Cheers for Freedom of Contract, 23 Cardozo L. Rev. 1529 (2002) (review essay)

The World Trade Constitution, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 511 (2000) (with John O. McGinnis) (published in Chinese as The World Trade Constitution (Chinese trans. Zhang Baosheng & Thomas Y. Man, 2004)

Sovereignty, Compliance, and the World Trade Organization: Lessons from the History of Supreme Court Review, 20 Mich. J. Int'l L. 775 (1999)

Are Statutes Really "Legislative Bargains"? The Failure of the Contract Analogy in Statutory Interpretation, 76 N.C. L. Rev. 1145 (1998)

The Persistent Nation State and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 18 Cardozo L. Rev. 1083 (1996) (symposium contribution)

Severability in Statutes and Contracts, 30 Ga. L. Rev. 41 (1995) (reprinted in 2 Sutherland Statutory Construction § 44A:17 (6th ed. 2001) (Norman J. Singer ed.))

Federalist Society Faculty Conference, "Free Speech vs. Anti-Discrimination: A Discussion on 303 Creative," Panelist (2024)

St. John's University CRS Global Campus, "The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict & Humanitarian Crisis" (2023)

Emory Law School, Center for the Study of Law and Religion, "RFRA and the New Thoreaus" (2023)

St. John’s Law Review Symposium, “The Rise of the Nones and American Law,” Speaker (2023)

Cardozo Law School, Floersheimer Center on Constitutional Democracy, “The Supreme Court and New Frontiers in Religious Liberty,” Panelist (2023)

Center for Law and Religion, Judges Roundtable on Law and Religion Cases at the Supreme Court, Moderator (2023)

University of Texas Law School, Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center, “The New Thoreaus” (2022)

LUMSA University (Rome), Conference on "Liberalism's Limits," Conference Co-Director (2022)

BYU Law School, International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Panelist, “The Future of Smith and Religious Exemptions” (2022)

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, Symposium on Religious Liberty at a Historic Crossroads, “Yoder at 50” (2022)

Johns Hopkins University, SNF Agora Institute, Secularism and Its Discontents: Religious Liberty in France and the United States, Panelist, “U.S. Religion in Public Spaces: Freedom of Conscience or Culture War?" (2021)

Tufts-Fresno State-St. John’s Universities, Joint Webinar on Cultural Heritage in Law and Diplomacy, Moderator (2021)

Federalist Society Faculty Division, Junior Scholars Colloquium, Commentator on Paper on “Free Exercise Partisanship” (2021)

Lomonosov Moscow State University Law Faculty, Speaker, Roundtable on Law and Religion (2020)

St. John’s University Institute for International Communication, Speaker, Roundtable on “The Crisis in the Caucasus” (2020)

Philos Project, Speaker, Roundtable on the Karabakh Crisis (2020)

BYU-Emory-St. John's Law Schools, Joint Webinar on “Law, Religion, and Coronavirus in the United States: A Six-Month Assessment,” Moderator, Panel on Religious Organizations (2020)