Curriculum Vitae
David Kennedy is the Faculty Director of the Institute, and the Manley O. Hudson Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He teaches international law, international economic policy, legal theory, law and development and European law. He joined the Harvard Law faculty in 1981 after teaching in Germany. He holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a J.D. from Harvard. He is the author of numerous articles on international law and global governance. His research uses interdisciplinary materials from sociology and social theory, economics and history to explore issues of global governance, development policy and the nature of professional expertise. He has been particularly committed to developing new voices from the third world and among women in international affairs.
Professor Kennedy also has extensive experience as a practicing lawyer, having worked on numerous international projects, both commercial and public, including work with the United Nations, the Commission of the European Union, PricewaterhouseCoopers and with the private firm of Clearly, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton in Brussels, where his work combined European antitrust litigation, government relations advising and general corporate law. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he is currently Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Advisory Council on Global Governance.
At Harvard, he served as Chair of the Graduate Committee and Faculty Director of International Legal Studies. He founded the European Law Research Center at Harvard in 1991 and has served continuously as Faculty Director. He has advised a number of educational institutions on their academic programs, and lectured as a Visiting Professor at numerous universities across the world. In 2008-2009, he served as Vice President for International Affairs, University Professor of Law and David and Marianna Fisher University Professor of International Relations at Brown University.