Director and Co-Founder, Center on Inclusive Trade and Development

Katrin Kuhlmann is currently a Professor, Graduate and International Programs and the Faculty Director and Co-founder of the Center on Inclusive Trade and Development at Georgetown University Law Center.  In 2010, Professor Kuhlmann founded the New Markets Lab (NML), a non-profit law and development innovation lab focused on inclusive legal and regulatory design and field-based law and development programs.  She is also a Senior Associate with the Global Food Security Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and she serves as a member of the Trade Advisory Committee on Africa of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).

Professor Kuhlmann brings uniquely diverse experience to her role at CITD.  Her career began in private legal practice with a focus on international trade, energy, and project finance, followed by a move to USTR, where she negotiated and led initiatives in areas including non-tariff measures, intellectual property rights in developing economies, and trade and development. She also designed and led negotiation of a regional Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) with Central Asia, which was the first economic agreement of its kind that is still used as a basis for economic engagement and development in the region.  After leaving USTR, she focused on how trade and development work in the field, founding and leading non-profit and think tank initiatives focused on trade and gender, regional trade with and within Africa, food security, special and differential treatment, and trade preference programs.  In addition to Georgetown Law, she has taught at Harvard Law School and the University of Nebraska College of Law.  Her research, teaching, and work focus on international law and development, inclusive and sustainable international trade law, regional trade agreements, agricultural law and food security, comparative economic law, African trade and development law and corridors, and the interdisciplinary connections between law and development.  She has consistently worked to bring a micro, bottom-up approach into the classroom, legal scholarship, and high level policy discussions while helping to shape the future of inclusive and sustainable trade and development.

Affiliations

• Senior Associate, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Global Food Security Program
• Advisory Committee Member, Trade Advisory Committee on Africa, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
• Member, Trade and Investment Law Group, Law Schools Global League
• Member, WTO Gender Research Hub
• Member, Bretton Woods Committee
• Vice President of the Board, Listening for America
• Board Member, Washington International Trade Association (WITA)
• Board Member, Malaika Foundation
• Advisory Board Member, BlockDrop (legal-tech company)
• Advisory Board Member, Harvard Law and International Development Society
• Advisory Council Member, Yeutter Institute of International Trade and Finance at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Expert Member, E15 Working Group on Trade, Development, and Finance, World Economic Forum
• Co-Chair, Aspen Institute, Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, Policy, Legal, and Regulatory Learning Lab (co-founder and chair Legal Working Group)