A public international lawyer, William Burke-White, specializes in international criminal law, international financial law, and human rights. Positioned at the intersection of international law and political science, his scholarship addresses international tribunals; justice in post-conflict reconstruction; the International Criminal Court; linkages between human rights and national security; state responses to emergencies, and international investment arbitration. He is currently researching the newfound power of Russia and China in the energy field.
In 2008 he received the A. Leo Levin Award for excellence in teaching an introductory course and was awarded a research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. In 2007 he received the Robert A. Gorman Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Burke-White serves as an expert for foreign governments, particularly Argentina, in international investment disputes and has advised the Democratic Republic of Congo on the creation of international criminal accountability mechanisms for the massive crimes committed there in the 1990s. Previously he has worked with the Government of Cambodia and the U.N. Transitional Administration in East Timor on the establishment of international criminal tribunals. He has served as Special Rapporteur/Advisor to the Government of Rwanda in drafting its new constitution; as Visiting Scholar at both the International Criminal Court, and Moscow State Institute of International Relations; as Visiting Scholar at Max Plank Institute of Public International Law in Heidelberg, Germany; as legal assistant at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and at Clifford Chance, L.L.P. London.
Burke-White, a frequent commentator in the media on issues of international law and international relations, has been published in The Financial Times, The International Herald Tribune, and Washington Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Foreign Policy, and is a regular guest on various public radio stations.
