John Head Reflects on 36 Years at KU Law

When John Head arrived at the University of Kansas School of Law in 1990, Green Hall was a different place. Research meant spending hours in the library. Faculty mailboxes doubled as meeting points. Students and professors spent long days under the same roof, because that was where the work — and the community — lived in the years before the electronic revolution came of age.

It was that Green Hall community, and the deep appreciation he has for it, that Head reflected on recently as he wrapped up his final full semester of teaching. In August of this year, he will retire after 36 years on the KU Law faculty. He is spending this spring semester finishing his final law journal article and his last book project.

A distinguished scholar of international, environmental and agricultural law, Head has had a career that addressed some of the most pressing sustainability challenges of the modern era, all while mentoring generations of KU Law students. He taught public international law, comparative law and international business transactions, among other courses, and quickly became known for making complex global systems accessible to students.

Head joined KU Law after a 10-year international legal career that already spanned continents. He earned his first law degree at Oxford University, then a J.D. at the University of Virginia. He clerked for the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, worked for an international law firm and served as legal counsel for two of the world’s most influential international institutions — the Asian Development Bank in Manila and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. Those roles immersed him in international finance, development and regulatory law.

But academia, he explains, offered something practice could not.

“In my earlier positions, I often found myself in law libraries, chasing broad legal and institutional questions that interested me, not necessarily the rather narrow ones my clients wanted answered,” Head says. “That’s when it became clear that I should think about getting into academics.”

KU Law became the place where his academic ambitions and personal priorities aligned. A faculty position focusing exclusively on international and comparative law opened at the right moment, offering both intellectual focus and a geographic home base within reach of extended family.

From that base in Lawrence, Head built what he describes as an “outward-bound career.” He traveled extensively for teaching, research and consulting, while remaining firmly rooted at KU Law. Three Fulbright fellowships — to China, Italy and Canada — proved pivotal, shaping what he describes as the “three generations” of his scholarly work.

A 1994 Fulbright to Beijing proved especially formative. Working with Chinese scholars, Head examined environmental crimes and regulatory enforcement, laying the groundwork for a series of books on Chinese legal history and comparative law. That experience sharpened his interest in how legal systems respond — or fail to respond — to environmental degradation.

The most personal turn in his work, however, came later, as he focused more directly on agriculture, land use and environmental sustainability. Raised on a family farm in northeast Missouri during the rise of industrial agriculture, Head witnessed firsthand the transition from traditional farming practices to chemical-intensive, large-scale operations.

“Looking back, I realize how critical that period was,” he says. “The Green Revolution shaped how I think about agriculture, soil health and sustainability.”

Those early experiences became the foundation for his later scholarship in international agricultural and environmental law. Head authored a four-book series advocating for agroecological reform — a shift away from extractive farming toward systems that prioritize soil health, biodiversity and long-term resilience. 

His most recent article, forthcoming in the Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy, brings that scholarship full circle. Making a case study out of the vineyard that his son and daughter-in-law own and operate in Washington state, Head examines biodynamic, organic and regenerative farming practices, and urges that these natural-systems processes can be applied to agriculture more broadly.

At KU Law, Head’s influence expanded well beyond his publications. He coached the school’s Jessup International Law Moot Court teams for more than 30 years, guiding students through demanding advocacy competitions that sharpened their legal reasoning and global awareness. Under his leadership, KU Law teams advanced to international rounds multiple times — accomplishments he counts among his proudest moments.

Head’s mentorship extended to individual research assistants as well, particularly through the Global Restoration Project, an interdisciplinary “think-tank” initiative he co-founded several years ago to examine global environmental challenges from a legal perspective. Mainly through its Substack newsletter (the GRP Gazette), that project addressed issues ranging from climate change and biodiversity loss to plastics pollution and fast fashion, offering students hands-on research experience and a broader view of law’s role in addressing global crises.

“It’s not likely that many of those students — or that many of the subscribers to our GRP Gazette — will work at the U.N. or negotiate climate treaties,” Head acknowledges. “But they can be community leaders, political influencers and advocates who take these issues seriously and push for action.”

Head has watched technology reshape research and teaching. 

“Now our faculty members can, and do, engage in legal education and service in ways that were unheard of when I started my work here in 1990,” Head says. “Our horizons of collaboration have expanded greatly.” 

What has endured, he says, is KU Law’s commitment to thoughtful leadership and a faculty culture that values patience, collegiality and respect. Head leaves KU Law with deep gratitude and a quiet sense of completion.

“Green Hall has been my home base,” he explains. “From here, I was able to engage with the world. I couldn’t have asked for a better place to do that.”

-By Julie Francisco