Alison Dundes Renteln is Professor of Political Science, Anthropology, Law, and Public Policy at USC where she teaches Law and Public Policy with an emphasis on comparative and international law. After she received her A.B. in History and Literature from Harvard-Radcliffe, she spent a year in a legal studies program at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has a PhD in Jurisprudence and Social Policy (UC Berkeley) and a JD (USC). She has received awards for teaching, research, and mentoring, including the USC Raubenheimer Award (fall 2022) which recognizes excellence in teaching, research, and service. In 2024-2025 she had a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs fellowship at the World Bank where she focused on the protection of cultural heritage during armed conflict.

Her publications focus on international human rights, particularly cultural rights, environmental rights, and socio-legal studies. Professor Renteln has published two single-authored books (one by Oxford University Press), two coauthored books (Cambridge University Press), and six coedited volumes (one in its third edition). She has published 70 articles. Her books include: International Human Rights: Universalism Versus Relativism (Sage, 1990; Quid Pro, 2014), The Cultural Defense (Oxford, 2004), Cultural Law (Cambridge University Press, 2010), Images and Human Rights co-edited with Nancy Stein (Cambridge Scholars, 2018), Bioethics and Human Rights (Rowman & Littlefield, 3rd ed. 2024), International Human Rights: A Survey coauthored with Cher Weixia Chen (Cambridge University Press, 2023), The Ethical University: Transforming Higher Education co-edited with Wanda Teays (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023).

For decades Renteln has taught judges, lawyers, court interpreters, jury consultants, and police officers in the U.S. and abroad. She collaborated with the UN on implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, lectured on comparative legal ethics at ABA-sponsored conferences in Asia, and served on a California committee of Human Rights Watch. Renteln served on civil rights commissions, e.g., California Advisory committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.