Andrew Novak

Associate Professor

Death penalty, comparative criminology, comparative law, human rights litigation, international criminal law, justice theory, LBGT rights, sport history, Sub-Saharan Africa

Andrew Novak is a specialist in international and comparative law and teaches courses related to international and comparative criminal justice and human rights. He previously worked as a government lawyer in the fields of administrative and employment law and taught African Law at American University Washington College of Law. Most of his research has focused on the death penalty in the English-speaking world with a focus on Africa. Other research interests have included comparative executive clemency, constitutional and human rights litigation in the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa, and sport history in colonial Zimbabwe, the subject of his master's thesis. Currently, he is working on a comparative law study of criminal convictions in tribal courts in the United States. He is licensed to practice law in New York and the District of Columbia.

Selected Publications

Criminal Convictions in U.S. Tribal Law: Collateral Consequences, Pardons, and Expungements in Indian Country (Routledge: 2024).

With Daniel Pascoe, ed. Executive Clemency: Comparative and Empirical Perspectives (Routledge: 2020).

Transnational Human Rights Litigation: Challenging the Death Penalty and Criminalization of Homosexuality in the Commonwealth (Springer: 2019).

The African Challenge to Global Death Penalty Abolition: International Human Rights Norms in Local Perspective (Intersentia: 2016).

Comparative Executive Clemency: The Constitutional Pardon Power and the Prerogative of Mercy in Global Perspective (Routledge: 2015).

The International Criminal Court: An Introduction (Springer: 2015).

The Global Decline of the Mandatory Death Penalty: Constitutional Jurisprudence and Legislative Reform in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean (Ashgate Law: 2014).

The Death Penalty in Africa: Foundations and Future Prospects (Palgrave Macmillan: 2014).

Expanded Publication List

“Collateral Consequences of Conviction and Restoration of Rights in Tribal Law” 100(3) North Dakota Law Review __ (2025).

“Contesting the Royal Prerogative of Mercy: The Queen’s Pardons and the 1968 Constitutional Crisis over the Death Penalty in Rhodesia,” 53(1) Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 82 (2025).

With Daniel Pascoe & Carolyn Strange. “The Politics of Abolition: Reframing the Death Penalty’s History in Comparative Perspective,” 27(3) Punishment & Society 486 (2024).

“Tanzania and the African Court Spar Over the Mandatory Death Penalty and Hanging: Kambole v Attorney General (Tanzania Court of Appeal, 2022) and Fourteen African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights Decisions Finding Tanzania in Violation of the African Charter,” 8 African Human Rights Yearbook 540 (2024).

“Zimbabwe’s Contribution to the Transnational Judicial Dialogue on Corporal Punishment: The Constitutional Court’s Embrace of a Global Norm in State v. Chokuramba,” 14(3) African Journal of Legal Studies 399 (2022).

With Daniel Pascoe. “Holdouts in the South Pacific: Explaining Death Penalty Retention in Papua New Guinea and Tonga,” 11(3) International Journal for Crime, Justice, and Social Democracy 43 (2022).

With Daniel Pascoe. “Executive Clemency During the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Global Analysis of Law and Practice,” 2 International Criminology 84 (2022).

“Hanging and the Mandatory Death Penalty at the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights: The Significance of Rajabu v. Tanzania,” 5 African Human Rights Yearbook 401 (2022).

With Daniel Pascoe. “Deadly Justice Without Mercy in East Asia?” 46(2) International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 141 (2022).

“Transnational Litigation against the Mandatory Death Penalty and Anti-Sodomy Laws: A New Commonwealth Human Rights Strategy?” 59(2) Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 149 (2021).

“Toward a Critical Criminology of HIV Criminalization,” 29(1) Critical Criminology 57 (2021).

“Rhodesia and FIFA: Racial Discrimination, Political Legitimacy and Football, 1960 to 1980,” 22 Soccer & Society 266 (2021).

“The ‘Judicial Dialogue’ in Transnational Human Rights Litigation: Muruatetu v. Republic and the Abolition of the Mandatory Death Penalty in Kenya,” 18 Human Rights Law Review 771 (2018).

“Capital Punishment in Precolonial Africa: The Authenticity Challenge,” 50 Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 71 (2018).

“Using International and Foreign Law in Human Rights Litigation: The Decriminalization of Consensual Same-Sex Relations in Belize,” 10 Journal of Human Rights Practice 346 (2018).

“Toward a Global Consensus on Life Imprisonment without Parole: Transnational Legal Advocates and the Zimbabwe Constitutional Court’s Decision in Makoni v. Commissioner of Prisons,” 62 Journal of African Law 315 (2018).

“The Role of Legal Advocates in Transnational Judicial Dialogue: The Abolition of the Mandatory Death Penalty and the Evolution of International Law,” 25 Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law 179 (2017).

“The Abolition of the Mandatory Death Penalty in Bangladesh: A Comment on Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust v. Bangladesh,” 15 Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal 277 (2016).

“Comparative Perspectives on Pardon Reform: Global Lessons for Federal Clemency in the United States,” 49 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 101 (2016).

Courses Taught

Law and Justice Around the World

Human Rights and Justice

International Crimes & Accountability

Social Inequality, Crime, and Justice

Capital Punishment

Honors Seminar: Executive Clemency

Values, Ethics, and Criminal Justice Policy

War Crimes Trials

Study Abroad

Education

Ph.D., Middlesex University London School of Law

J.D., Boston University School of Law

M.Sc. (African Politics), London School of Oriental and African Studies

B.A., International Affairs, George Washington University