Center for Energy Law Director’s book named best of the year

A book on transnational law by Tulane Center for Energy Law Director Frederic Sourgens (L’05) has been named the 2023 ABILA Book of the Year. 

The American Branch of the International Law Association awards the Book of the Year Award annually to the best book published in the previous year on international law or a topic in international law. Sourgens will receive the honors on Oct. 21.

Sourgens is the James McCulloch Chair in Energy Law at Tulane University Law School Center for Energy Law. His book Good Faith in Transnational Law: A Pluralist Account (Brill Nijhoff, 2022), explains and recasts the fragmentation of transnational law and its capture by self-interested corporate actors as something valuable. Sourgens argues that for communication across vastly different commercial, economic, social, cultural, and linguistic contexts to remain legally meaningful, different expectations must be translated into a shared transnational discourse.

The award is among the most prestigious conferred by the organization on authors.

“This is such an incredible honor for Professor Sourgens and Tulane Law School,” said Interim Dean Sally Richardson. “Tulane Law’s historic strength in international and comparative law are in good hands moving into the future with individuals like Professor Sourgens on our faculty. We are so proud of all of his achievements in international law and energy law, and look forward to seeing the amazing things he will do in the future.” 

Sourgens joined Tulane Law this summer and is an international expert in dispute resolution, transnational law, and energy transition and has published extensively on the subject. As Center Director, he leads a uniquely-positioned law school think tank that is deeply influential in the regional oil and gas industry, and which has established itself as a voice at the center of the nation’s transition to renewable energy. 

In two weeks, Sourgens will lead the inaugural Tulane Energy Forum, in partnership with the A.B. Freeman School of Business, which will welcome current and past commissioners from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), energy titans, leaders in the energy bar, and Tulane Law and Business professors, among other top experts in the field.

Sourgens is formerly the Senator Robert J. Dole Distinguished Professor of Law at Washburn University where he also was Director of the Washburn Oil and Gas Law Center. He is the co-lead investigator with OPEC’s General Legal Counsel, Leonardo Sempértegui of the energy transition policy and regulatory briefs project for the Organization of Petroleum Producing States (OPEC). 

Sourgens is the Chair of the Southwest Institute for International and Comparative Law and a member of the Executive Committee and chair of the Academic Outreach Committee for the Institute for Energy Law. He is the author of more than 90 books, textbooks, articles, book chapters, book reviews, and essays.

Before entering academia, Sourgens practiced law at Fulbright & Jaworski LLP in Houston (now Norton Rose Fulbright) and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP in Washington DC (now Milbank).