Terra Lawson-Remer (J.D., Ph.D.) is Assistant Professor of International Affairs at the New School University in New York City. She earned her B.A. from Yale University; her J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she was awarded a full tuition Dean’s Merit Scholarship; and her Ph.D. with a concentration in Political Economy from New York University’s Law & Society Institute. She was previously a Senior Adviser for International Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and also held positions at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, the law firm of Latham & Watkins, and the Ethical Globalization Initiative. Dr. Lawson-Remer is currently a fellow for Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she is directing the CFR-sponsored study on the political economy of transitions. She currently chairs the New School’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility, and is also a Founder and Co-Director of the Economic & Social Rights Empowerment Initiative, a joint project with SSRC.

Dr. Lawson-Remer’s research addresses opportunity and exclusion in the global economy, including economic development and poverty, natural resources, global economic governance, property rights, emerging economies, fragile states, inclusive growth, and rule of law. She has written numerous academic research articles on these issues, and worked and conducted field studies in Latin America, North and East Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific. She is co-creator of the social & economic rights fulfillment (SERF) index and author of the forthcoming book Fulfilling Economic & Social Rights (with Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and Susan Randolph, Oxford University Press).

Long a committed civic leader, Dr. Lawson-Remer previously worked as an organizer, action coordinator, and consultant for a variety of grassroots environmental and social justice organizations, including Amnesty International USA, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Ruckus, the United Farm Workers, and the Rainforest Action Network. She was a lead plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of San Diego’s youth curfew ordinance, which the Ninth Circuit agreed was unconstitutional and overturned in 1997. At Yale she co-founded STARC: Students Transforming and Resisting Corporations, a national student organization that advocated for corporate social responsibility and played a pivotal role in winning greater transparency and strengthening environmental and social safeguards at the WTO and World Bank.

Dr. Lawson-Remer is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and author of the forthcoming book Fulfilling Social & Economics Rights (with Fukuda-Parr and Randolph, Oxford University Press, 2012). Some of her recent academic publications and working papers include: Security of Property Rights for Whom?; Do Stronger Collective Property Rights Improve Household Welfare? Evidence from a Field Study in Fiji; A Role for the International Finance Corporation in Integrating Environmental & Human Rights Standards into Core Project Covenants: A Case Study of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline Project; Property Insecurity, Growth, & Conflict; Integrating Environmental, Social and Governance Issues into Institutional Investment: A Handbook for Colleges and Universities; An Index of Social & Economic Rights Fulfillment: Concept & Methodology; and NAFTA, GATS, and the Propertization of Resources.

Comparative Development Experience

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