Jason Yackee

Professor Yackee’s research centers on international investment law, international economic relations, foreign arbitration, and administrative law and politics. He teaches Contracts, International Investment Law, International Arbitration, and International Business Transactions.

Professor Yackee graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pittsburgh, earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science (International Relations) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and earned a J.D., summa cum laude and Order of the Coif, from Duke University School of Law where he was an editor for the Duke Law Journal. He has also studied French and European law at L’Universite Pantheon-Assas (Paris-2), and he was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to conduct research at the Thammasat University Faculty of Law, in Bangkok, Thailand.

Professor Yackee has published articles in a variety of peer-reviewed social science journals, student-edited law reviews, and edited volumes, including the George Washington Law Review, the Harvard International Law Journal, and the Virginia Journal of International Law. Professor Yackee has presented his research widely, both domestically and abroad. Professor Yackee has served as a contract consultant for a major developed country on investment treaty issues, and has presented his research at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris.

Professor Yackee’s work on the federal rulemaking process was awarded the Midwest Political Science Association’s prize for “best paper by an emerging scholar”, and his research on bilateral investment treaties has been funded by the National Science Foundation. Professor Yackee’s research on choice-of-court clauses in international commercial contracts has been cited by the Tenth and Second Circuits. See “Choice of Law Considerations for International Forum Selection Agreements: Whose Law Applies?, 9 UCLA J. INT’L LAW & FOREIGN AFFAIRS 43 (2004), cited by Yavuz v. 61 MM, Ltd, 465 F.3d 418 (10th Cir. 2006); Phillips v. Audio Active, Ltd., 494 F.3d 378 (2d Cir. 2007).

Professor Yackee is currently working on a major historical project that uses archival research to analyze the French government’s use of diplomatic and legal means to protect its foreign investors in Africa. The first article from that project is a detailed study of an 1864 arbitration between the Suez Canal Company and Egypt: “The First Investor-State Arbitration”, 17 J. World Investment & Trade 401 (2016).