Paolo Carozza is Professor of Law and the newly appointed Director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights at Notre Dame Law School. Prof. Carozza is also Director of the Law School's JSD Program in International Human Rights Law and the director of the Law School's interdisciplinary Program on Law and Human Development. 

An internationally-recognized scholar in the areas of comparative law, human rights, and international law,  Prof. Carozza was a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights from 2006 to 2010, and served as its President in 2008-09. He is a fellow of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. 

Prof. Carozza earned both his A.B. and J.D. degrees from Harvard, and pursued graduate studies at Cambridge University and at Harvard Law School as a Ford Foundation Fellow in Public International Law. After law school, he served as a judicial clerk for the Supreme Court of the Federated States of Micronesia and worked as an associate at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Arnold & Porter.

The Murphy Institute’s Human Dignity lecture series brings together prominent thinkers in fields such as philosophy, theology, and law to rigorously explore just what it means for humans to possess dignity. Lecturers in the series to date have been: 

1. Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University
2. Gilbert Meilaender, Richard and Phyllis Duesenberg Chair in Theological Ethics at Valparaiso University
3. David Luban, University Professor and Professor of Law and Philosophy at Georgetown University Law Center and the Acting Director of the Center on National Security and the Law
4. Paolo Carozza, Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame, Director of Notre Dame’s  J.S.D. program in International Human Rights Law as well as the Program on Law and Human Development
5. Hans Joas, Ernst Troeltsch Professor for the Sociology of Religion at the Theological Faculty of Humboldt University, Berlin, and a Professor of Sociology and Social Thought and Member of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago