The Salzburg Cutler Fellows Program is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for graduate students from top US law schools who intend to pursue careers in international law, legal practice, and public service. The program identifies rising leaders and fosters lasting collaborative networks within the legal and public service sectors.

What is the Fellowship?

The Salzburg Global Seminar is an independent non-profit designed to create future leaders. Georgetown Law participates annually in its Salzburg Cutler Fellows Program, which brings together more than 50 of the nation’s top law students with leading academics and practitioners in the fields of private and public international law. The program offers J.D. and LL.M. students opportunities to obtain feedback on academic work and career advice from established international law scholars and practitioners. A critical component of the Cutler Fellows program is that each student presents a paper (or a substantive executive summary thereof) they have written to a small group of other fellows and faculty.

Program Format and Dates

In advance of the program’s kick-off, each student prepares a research paper on a key international law topic. The initial session will be held online on Thursday, January 11; a subsequent online session will be held on a date to be determined.  Students gather in Washington, DC on Thursday evening, February 8 for a welcome event and then meet over two intensive days on Friday, February 9 and Saturday, February 10. Top law faculty and peers from 14 leading institutions review each paper in a workshop setting and offer advice on improving arguments and moving papers toward publication. Lawyers and other mentors in public service meet with Fellows to discuss traditional and non-traditional pathways into careers in international law and public service. Fellows also enjoy keynote addresses by renowned public servants.

How To Apply

Georgetown 2L, 3L and LL.M. students should submit application materials as a single PDF by 11:59 pm on Monday, December 29, 2023.  Materials should include:

1. A cover letter explaining your background and interest in the Salzburg Cutler Fellows Program. 
2. A resume or CV
3. An unofficial transcript
4. A 2-3 page executive summary of the paper that you would like to present. The theme for the 2024 program is International Law in Times of Great Power Competition.*

*Students are encouraged to submit abstracts based on articles or papers in development for other purposes – e.g. seminar, independent study, law review. A 5-8 page executive summary of the paper will be due on January 25. 

Students’ areas of interest should fit in one of these major areas:

-international human rights and humanitarian law
-international and national security
-international environmental policy and law
-international courts and tribunal
-international finance, monetary and trade law

Selection is based on a combination of commitment to international law and academic promise.

Questions?

Please direct questions to Center on Inclusive Trade and Development (citd@georgetown.edu).

On the 13th and 14th of November, the WTO Gender Research Hub held the first-ever Youth Trade Summit on Gender bringing together young professionals, researchers and leading gender and trade champions. The two-day summit provided a unique opportunity for young researchers to build knowledge and capacity at the trade and gender nexus. Emilie Kerstens, CITD Alumni Research Affiliate, was chosen to participate in this event. Click below to read her blogpost about it.

On November 1st, Katrin Kuhlmann, CITD Co-Director, joined the Global Economic Ideas Festival (GEIF). This annual global conference hosted by the Institute of Certified Chartered Economists (ICCE) and is set to bring together world leaders and top global policy shapers in interactive panel sessions and insightful keynotes.

The panel, titled "Leaving no one Behind: Rethinking Globalization in a Fragmented World", was moderated by Dr. Frannie Leautier, Charirperson for GEIF 2023, and joined by M. Azhar Hussain from the International Board of Standards, ICCE, Margareta Drzeniek, Managing Partner of the Horizon Group and Professor Kuhlmann.

During the discussion the panelists explored how in recent years the patterns of trade of all kinds have shifted, transforming the opportunities and challenges of globalization. The panel also delved into how today’s shifts represent an opportunity to take stock and ensure that the processes of global integration deliver better outcomes for all.

CITD Co-Director Jennifer Hillman, and CFR Fellow for Trade Policy Inu Manak, have published a new report on international rules on subsidies. According to the authors, “The United States should lead the effort to reshape the global rules to better serve its own interests and the international trading system’s changing realities." The authors also contend that such an effort “would give the United States a powerful tool to address its twin concerns over competition with China and fighting climate change. It would also allow the WTO and the world to come closer to a more equitable, resilient, and sustainable international economic order.”

The report examines the growing reliance of the United States on using domestic subsidies to address global challenges: “the [Joe] Biden administration has maintained and expanded on the [Donald] Trump administration’s tariff policy, defended at the time as helping the United States compete globally against a rising China, by introducing major new subsidy programs. Importantly, the primary motivation for those efforts falls into two buckets—to counter China and to fight climate change.” That adoption of industrial policy “has prompted cries from across the globe that the United States is fostering unfair competition and breaking the rules it helped shape as part of the World Trade Organization (WTO).”

TESS, the Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs, convened a diverse group of eminent legal experts, including CITD Co-Director Jennifer Hillman, to foster shared understanding of existing principles in international law that can guide policymakers when debating, designing and implementing trade-related climate measures. This report is the outcome of the expert group’s work.

The report examines a set of well-established principles of international law, identified by the expert group as particularly pertinent for shaping and executing trade-related climate measures and policies. The acknowledgment and shared understanding of these principles hold the potential to mitigate tensions and preempt politically charged disputes within the World Trade Organization (WTO). Simultaneously, fostering such shared understanding can facilitate collaborative efforts in crafting inclusive trade policies that not only align with climate action objectives but also contribute to the advancement of sustainable development goals.

Beyond underscoring the significance of these principles, the report aspires to furnish governments with comprehensive guidance. This guidance is envisioned to serve as a valuable resource in the formulation and execution of trade-related climate measures and policies. It is designed to promote coherence across various legal domains, recognizing the dynamic interplay of principles contingent upon the specific nature of the measure and the contextual backdrop. The overarching aim is to provide a framework that not only acknowledges the diverse operational landscapes but also encourages a harmonious integration of these principles, fostering a conducive environment for effective climate action and sustainable development.

A free online international trade law casebook written and edited by Professors Henry Gao, Jennifer Hillman, Nicolas Lamp and Joost Pauwelyn is now available for free on-line.

No student, anywhere in the world, should find themselves unable to learn international trade law because textbooks are too expensive. That’s why the Geneva Trade Platform teamed up with four leading professors, including our Co-Director Jennifer Hillman, to create something brand new: a completely free, comprehensive online casebook.

The casebook is currently in its open beta version, with 16 core chapters ready and the final five chapters to be added soon. The book is now sufficiently advanced to prove potentially useful to students and teachers alike.

The possibilities and implications of this new format not only address the at-times prohibitive cost of a traditional casebook, but also allows edits and expansions of the content very quickly instead of once every few years in a new addition. Moreover, this format can ignore the space constraints a paper book implies by including a wealth of optional content, including eventually a wealth of diverse voices offering critiques, analysis and case studies and a broad range of embedded media such as videos, podcasts and external links to make the content more dynamic for students.

CITD is proud to announce the publication of "Using Trade Tools to Fight Climate Change", co-edited by our Co-Director Jennifer Hillman and Loriane Damian. This book is focused on practical measures that can be taken to harness the power of trade and trade tools to address climate change. Ranging from promoting the transfer of technology allowing local cement production to capture and store carbon, to using services commitments to open doors to climate migrants, to details on everything from green steel to a circular plastics economy to greenhouse gas measurement metrics to carbon clubs, the book is based on papers written by Georgetown Law students.

This book offers sound legal assessments of what can make a climate measure WTO consistent and how new norms could be established to separate bad from good subsidies. An excellent guide for policymakers looking to take bolder action on climate change through trade measures without triggering trade
reprisals.

During an event hosted by the Climate Leadership Council (CLC), Jennifer Hillman and James Bacchus, two former WTO Appellate Body members, discussed a new CLC report titled “Carbon Import Fees and the WTO”. The discussion explored how, while existing rules offer opportunities for various climate-related efforts, tweaking those rules or launching new negotiations could be even more effective.

The report was written by CLC Vice President for Policy and Research Matt Porterfield, and outlines a series of “WTO defenses” for “carbon import fees,” the CLC’s catch-all term for duties imposed at the border based on carbon emissions.

March 29, 2023 by Emmanuel Amoah

On March 29, 2023, renowned China expert and trade law scholar Professor Henry Gao of Singapore Management University visited Georgetown Law for a discussion of his most recent book co-authored with Professor Weihuan Zhou and entitled “Between Market Economy and State Capitalism: China's State-Owned Enterprises and the World Trading System.”

This event was organized by the Center on Inclusive Trade and Development (CITD) in collaboration with the Georgetown Society for Trade Investment and Development and the Center for Asian Law. CITD’s co-director, Professor Jennifer Hillman, facilitated the discussion.

In commemoration of International Women’s Day, CITD hosted an “Erasing the And” roundtable focused on trade and gender. Trade is no longer viewed as “gender neutral”, and trade agreements are increasingly incorporating gender provisions. Yet deeper research and more tailored legal and policy approaches are needed to ensure that women’s needs are met. CITD’s event shared highlights of the December 2022 WTO World Trade Congress on Gender, featuring Anoush der Boghossian, Head of the Trade and Gender Unit at the WTO, followed by a panel discussion including Nadia Rocha, Lead Economist, Global Trade and Regional Integration at the World Bank, CITD Co-Director Professor Katrin Kuhlmann and Advisory Board Member Professor Amrita Bahri. Professors Kuhlmann and Bahri will also presented research on how to ensure that trade agreements can be better designed and implemented to address the challenges that women face around the world, which they presented and at the WTO Gender Congress.

December 8, 2022

CITD Co-Director Katrin Kuhlmann presented her research at the WTO's Trade Congress on Gender: Gender Equality for Sustainable Trade and Recovery. The three-day event was the first of its kind, featuring top researchers and their ground-breaking analysis of the relationship between trade and inclusivity. With 82 of the world's top gender and trade researchers presenting across 15 sessions to nearly 1,000 participants, the Congress laid the groundwork for innovative global solutions to the 21st century's unprecedented challenges. Georgetown Law's Kuhlmann presented her paper Gender Mainstreaming in Trade Agreements: "A Potemkin Facade"?, co-authored with Amrita Bahri, in addition to hosting CITD and the DisAbled Women's Network of Canada's joint discussion, "Making Trade Agreements Work for People with Disabilities."

In her recent conversation with the Friends of Multilateralism Group, Jennifer Hillman discussed recent major developments in US trade policy since 2018, and the transition of trade priorities from the Trump administration to that of President Biden. Hillman then described the US move to an initiatives-centric economic policy, especially with regards to international trade. Several key shifts in perceptions around US trade policy will shape the outcome of WTO trade efforts.

CITD Co-Director Jennifer Hillman participated in a US Trade Policy Preview with the Friends of Multilateralism Group's "Trade Policy Preview," or "TP-P" series. Across this multi-year installation, FMG gathers regional, policy, and academic experts to examine and react to WTO trade policy trends in different countries. This week's iteration of the series focused on the United States and its future under new WTO policies.

Jennifer Hillman testified on the importance of WTO reform before the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade on October 24th. Gathering with other experts on global trade, Hillman emphasized the relationship between global trade outcomes and successful US and EU cooperation leadership efforts. She further discussed the erosion of buy-in to WTO commitments and outlined potential reform methods and substance as the world navigates the notable transition in US leadership and policy over the past four years.

This fall, CITD's Katrin Kuhlmann joined Rem Korteweg and Beata Javorcik in a panel discussion on AIG's Global Trade Series podcast. Together, they discussed the range of impacts international trade has on women and gender equality in the global arena. Central to the panel discussion and Katrin Kuhlmann's work are questions about the nature of opportunities created by international trade for women, as well as identifying action items to ensure that globalization empowers women while advancing a narrative of gender equality.