Sungjoon Cho
Professor of Law and Norman and Edna Freehling Scholar
Professor Sungjoon Cho, an authority on international economic law, joined the IIT Chicago-Kent faculty in 2003 and teaches courses in international law, international trade law, international business transactions, and comparative law. He earned his LL.B. from Seoul National University in 1989, his M.P.A. degree from Seoul National University in 1994 and his LL.M. in international economic law from the University of Michigan Law School in 1997. In 2002, he received his S.J.D. (Doctor of Juridical Science) degree from Harvard Law School.
Professor Cho currently serves as adviser on international affairs and global industrial cooperation to the South Korean government's Ministry of Knowledge Economy and as a consultant to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He has held appointments as a Clark Byse Fellow at Harvard Law School, a Research Fellow with Harvard Law School's East Asian Legal Studies Program, and an Emil Noël Fellow at New York University Law School. He has taught at Fordham Law School, Seoul National University School of Law (Korea), KDI School of Public Policy and Management (Korea), and Catholic University of Lublin (Poland). He will be a visiting professor at Northwestern Law School in spring 2012.
Professor Cho's works have been selected for the prestigious Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum twice (2007 and 2008). He has also been awarded the Dean's Challenge Grant, which is provided to Chicago-Kent College of Law faculty members who are most productive, three times (2004, 2006 and 2008). He was appointed Norman and Edna Freehling Scholar in July 2009.
Professor Cho has written numerous books and articles on international economic law, including Beyond Rationality: Toward a Sociological Construction of the World Trade Organization, 52 Virginia Journal of International Law 321 (2012); The Economics of Injunctive and Reverse Settlements, 12 American Law and Economics Review 181 (2010) (with Keith N. Hylton); Of the World Trade Court's Burden, 20 European Journal of International Law 675 (2009); Anticompetitive Trade Remedies, 87 North Carolina Law Review 357 (2009); A Quest for WTO's Legitimacy, 4 World Trade Review 391 (2005); A Bridge Too Far: The Fall of the Fifth WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancún and the Future of Trade Constitution, 7 Journal of International Economic Law 219 (2004); Breaking the Barrier between Regionalism and Multilateralism: A New Perspective on Trade Regionalism, 42 Harvard International Law Journal 419 (2001); The Law of the World Trade Organization through Cases (2007-08) (co-authored with Joseph H. H. Weiler & Isabella Feichtner); and Free Markets and Social Regulation: A Reform Agenda of the Global Trading System (Kluwer Law International 2003). Professor Cho is a regular contributor to the International Economic Law and Policy Blog.
Professor Cho's works and comments have been cited by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Law Library of Congress, Voice of America, United Press International (UPI), The Embassy (Canada), Le Moniteur du Commerce International (France), Canadian Business, and Joong-Ang Daily (Korea). His writings also appear frequently in the international news media, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Hill, Asia Times, and Mae-Kyung Economic Daily (Korea).
From 1994 to 1996, before coming to the United States, Professor Cho represented the government of the Republic of Korea in negotiations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). He is a member of the bar of the state of New York. He also holds a license to practice law in Korea. Professor Cho has recently been appointed member of arbitration panel roster under Chapter 14 (Dispute Settlement) of the Korea–European Union Free Trade Agreement.