Marcela Prieto teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, and feminist theory, and her research examines the moral coherence and justification of international humanitarian law. She came to legal scholarship through a career prosecuting international crimes committed by the Pinochet dictatorship, an experience that shaped both her scholarly lens and her conviction that no legal regime is beyond scrutiny. Prieto has presented at the NYU Colloquium in Legal, Political, and Social Philosophy and the UCLA Legal Theory Workshop. Her book, “The Morality of the Laws of War,” received the 2023 ABILA New Author Award from the American Branch of the International Law Association and the American Society of International Law’s Lieber Prize.
Please introduce yourself.
My name’s Marcela Prieto and I’m an associate professor of law and philosophy at USC Gould. I teach criminal law, criminal procedure, and feminist theory.
What is your interpretation of law and philosophy? How would you describe it to someone who didn’t know about this specific niche?
There are many ways of thinking about the field, but the one I’m most interested in is the one that asks whether positive law is just or morally justified.
Can you briefly describe the focus of your research? What gap in existing knowledge do you hope to fill or add to with your scholarship?
My research focuses on the overlap between just war theory and International Humanitarian Law; that is, the laws that regulate armed conflict. I’m interested in the moral coherence of the regime as well as its moral and political justification.
Tell us a bit about your motivation for your specialty area and how you arrived at Gould.
I started my career prosecuting international crimes committed by the Pinochet dictatorship. That was the first time I encountered the Geneva Conventions, one of the main treaties that regulate war in international law.
What do you hope your students take away from your courses? What would success as a professor look like for you?
I hope they realize that the legal system is entirely contingent and that everything can be subject to moral critique and reconstruction.
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