Kate Yoon

Kate is an Academic Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School. She is interested in how sovereign states engage with the international economic order. Her research concerns the dual role of sovereign states as both regulators of, and participants in, the market. For example, as state-owned enterprises become more prominent players in the economy, courts and arbitral tribunals must characterize their actions as sovereign or non-sovereign conduct, raising unresolved legal questions. Kate is also interested in why and how sovereign states choose to sign contracts governed by the laws of another state, or treaties that subject them to the jurisdiction of
international courts and tribunals.

Kate graduated from Harvard College, summa cum laude, where she won the Hoopes Prize and the Mill-Taylor Prize for her work in political theory. She attended the University of Oxford as a Clarendon Scholar, obtaining an MPhil (with distinction) and DPhil in political theory. At Yale Law School, where Kate obtained her J.D., she won the Ambrose Gherini Prize for best essay in international law.  

Before coming to Columbia, Kate worked at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, where she assisted in arbitrations involving sovereign states, state entities and international organizations. She also worked at the World Bank's International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes. 

Kate's work has been published in The Yale Law Journal, The Yale Journal of International Law Online, Political Theory, and International Theory. Her non-academic writing has also appeared in the Boston Review, the Nation, and the Law & Political Economy Blog, among other outlets.