Henry Federer

Dissertation Title: Liberal Egalitarianism and Positive Constitutional Rights

Doctoral Supervisor: Professor Jeremy Waldron

Biography: Henry Federer is a J.S.D. Candidate from Canada. His doctoral research explores the relationship between positive constitutional rights, political institutions, and liberal egalitarian theories of justice. Drawing on constitutional theory, comparative law, and political philosophy, his dissertation evaluates what positive constitutional rights, as a legal and political institutional arrangement, can contribute to securing a just society. He is affiliated with NYU Law’s Center for Law and Philosophy.

More broadly, Henry’s academic interests include constitutional law and theory, legal philosophy, administrative and public law, and international trade law. His scholarly writings have appeared in the Canadian Journal of Administrative Law and Practice and the Cambridge Law Review. His teaching experience includes serving as the teaching assistant for NYU Law’s International Trade Law course and leading upper-level reading groups on Rawls’s constitutional theory and the political economy of international economic law. Previously, he was a student editor of the N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change and the Queen’s Law Journal.

Henry completed his LL.M. in Legal Theory at NYU Law in 2023. He also holds a J.D. from Queen’s University, where he received prizes in Torts and Property Law, and a B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy from Western University. Before commencing graduate legal studies, he was a litigation associate at a leading Toronto law firm. His practice included commercial and corporate litigation, class actions, intellectual property disputes, and public law matters. He was called to the Ontario Bar in 2020.

Contact Information: hef7243@nyu.edu