William Burke-White

William Burke-White is Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches public international law, international investment law, human rights, and climate change. He holds a BA and JD from Harvard University and a PhD in international relations from Cambridge University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. A leading authority in global governance and US foreign policy, he has expertise in designing and implementing complex global governance solutions involving multiple institutions and multilateral legal regimes, with a regional focus on Russia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Burke-White’s government experience includes serving on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff in the Obama administration, where he played a key role in drafting the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, a major initiative to reform US foreign policy. He was also responsible for US engagement with international institutions, including the G20, G8, and the United Nations.

Burke-White has advised governments, law firms, international organizations, and investment funds on complex questions of public international law, including investorstate arbitration, sovereign immunity and debt enforcement, sanctions and national security measures, and the international legal dimensions of US policy toward Russia, China, Venezuela, and Iran, sanctions regimes, sovereign debt enforcement, and international legal rules. He has held visiting professorships at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Harvard Law, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, and Mofid University of Iran. He previously served as the Inaugural Director of Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania’s interdisciplinary international affairs institute, and as a Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is a licensed attorney in the State of New York.