Katerina Linos

Katerina Linos is an American legal scholar. She is the I. Michael Heyman Professor of Law and Co-Director of Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Her areas of expertise include international law, comparative law, European Union law, employment law, Immigration law, Refugee law, Human rights, Law and economics, Law and society, Empirical legal studies, and Social science research methodology.

Career and scholarship Linos is best known for her scholarship on policy diffusion. In her 2013 book "The Democratic Foundations of Policy Diffusion," she argues that policy ideas spread not only through technocratic networks, but also through democratic processes. The book won three national prizes: the Giovanni Sartori Prize, the Chadwick Alder Prize, and the Peter Katzenstein Prize. It was also selected for the Best Books of 2013 on Western Europe by Foreign Affairs.

Linos also studies refugee and migration law. In 2017, Linos was awarded a Carnegie Fellowship to study the European migrant crisis. Her UC Berkeley & UC Davis collaborative interactive data project, "Digital Refuge," tells the story of the migrant crisis from the perspective of refugees themselves, using over 10,000 Facebook post and 6,000 interview data with refugees. Linos examines how (mis)information shapes refugee and migration law, evaluates progressive and conservative innovations, and explores the strong rationales for financing climate mobility.

In addition to her substantive work, Linos has made important methodological contributions, identifying best practices for using qualitative research methodology for international law, and migration and refugee law studies and for general legal scholarship. Past guests include European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager, former President of the International Court of Justice Joan Donoghue, and former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou. Co-hosted by Mark A. Pollack, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) Series of Borderlines has been building a public archive of biographies of and interviews with current and former judges and advocates general of the European Court of Justice. The Borderlines CJEU Series published more than 15 episodes so far, with full interviews transcripts and links to cases and sources mentioned in the interviews, such as opinions, judgments, press releases, laws, speeches, and publications.

Linos spent the 2024-2025 academic year as a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, researching how the European Union has developed comprehensive initiatives rapidly in the fields of technology, finance, and migration.

Teaching Courses Linos teaches include international business transactions, international law, European Union law, and international organizations.

Publications

Book

Selected articles Linos, Katerina. "Diffusion through Democracy." 55 (3) Am. J. Pol. Sc. 678 (2011). Linos, Katerina. "How to Select and Develop International Law Case Studies: Lessons from Comparative Law and Comparative Politics." 109 Am. J. Int'l L 475 (2015). Linos, Katerina, and Kimberly Twist. "The Supreme Court, the Media, and Public Opinion: Comparing Experimental and Observational Methods." J. Legal Stud. 45, No. 2 (2016). Linos, Katerina, and Melissa Carlson. "Qualitative Methods for Law Review Writing." 84 U. Chi. L. Rev. 213 (2017). Carlson, Melissa, Laura Jakli, and Katerina Linos. "Refugees Misdirected: How Information, Misinformation, and Rumors Shape Refugees’ Access to Fundamental Rights." 57 Virg. J. Int'l L. 3 (2018). Linos, Katerina, and Elena Chachko. "Qualitative Methods in the Study of Migration and Refugee Law." in Oxford Handbook of Comparative Immigration Law (Kevin Cope, Stella Burch Elias, and Jill Goldenziel eds., Forthcoming). Chachko, Elena, and Katerina Linos. "Ukraine and the Emergency Powers of International Institutions." 116 Am. J. Int'l L. 775 (2022). Linos, Katerina, and Kristina Daugirdas. "Back to Basics: The Benefits of Paradigmatic International Organizations." 14 Harv. Nat'l Sec. J. 181 (2023). Daugirdas, Kristina, and Katerina Linos. "Are International Organizations Obsolete?" 20 Int'l Org. L. Rev. 263 (2023). Bradford, Anu, Adam Chilton, and Katerina Linos. "The Gravity of Legal Diffusion." 2023 U. Chi. Legal F. 35 (2023). Bradford, Anu, Adam Chilton, and Katerina Linos. "Dynamic Diffusion." 27 J. Int'l Econ. L. 538 (2024).

Kempf, Elena, and Katerina Linos. "NGEU: A New Marshall Plan for Europe and a Template for Global Finance." 118 Am. J. Int'l L. Unbound 151 (2024). Linos, Katerina. "Qualitative Social Science Methods for Legal Scholarship: From Complex Data to Compelling Narratives." 119 Proceedings of the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting 73 (2025). Bradford, Anu, Adam Chilton, and Katerina Linos. "The Limits and Promise of Global Antitrust Law." 66 Harv. J. Int'l L. 431 (2025). Linos, Katerina. "Financing Climate Mobility – from Duty to Investment." 119 Am. J. Int'l L. Unbound 107 (2025). Deli, Janka, and Katerina Linos. "Silver Linings of the EU Migration Pact: Progressive Elements, Binding Solidarity, and Their Limits." in Challenges of European Refugee and Asylum Law and Policy (Iris Goldner Lang and Janine Silga eds., Oxford University Press, 2027).