Faculty

Terra Lawson-Remer

Assistant Professor of International Affairs

Dr. Lawson-Remer earned her B.A. in Ethics, Politics & Economics from Yale University; her J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she was a Dean's Merit Scholar; and her Ph.D. in Political Economy from New York University's Law & Society Institute.

Terra Lawson-Remer is Assistant Professor of International Affairs and Economics at The New School, and Fellow for Civil Society, Markets & Democracy at the Council on Foreign Relations. She previously served as Senior Policy Advisor at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. She is also currently co-director of the Economic & Social Rights Empowerment Initiative and chair of the University's Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR), and consults for the World Bank and United Nations.

Dr. Lawson-Remer is co-creator of the social & economic rights fulfillment (SERF) index, author of Fulfilling Economic & Social Rights (with Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and Susan Randolph, Oxford University Press), and editor of Realizing Democracy: Lessons from Transition Countries (with Isobel Coleman, Council on Foreign Relations Press). She is editor and writer for the Council on Foreign Relations Development Channel and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.

Long a committed civic leader, Dr. Lawson-Remer previously worked as an organizer, action coordinator, legal fellow, and consultant for numerous grassroots environmental and social justice organizations, and held positions at the UN World Institute for Development Economics Research, Latham & Watkins, Amnesty International, the Ethical Globalization Initiative, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the Ruckus Society.  She was also a lead plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of San Diego's youth curfew ordinance, which the Ninth Circuit agreed was unconstitutional and overturned in 1997. She co-founded STARC: Students Transforming and Resisting Corporations, a national student organization that advocated for corporate responsibility in the face of increased globalization and pushed for greater public accountability by the World Bank, IMF, and WTO. Her exploits include surfing, rockclimbing, and rappelling off the side of the New York Plaza Hotel with a 40 x 60 foot anti-Bush banner during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Courses Taught

Poverty, Inequality, and Development; Paradox of Plenty; Development Economics; Comparative Development Experience

Recent Publications

Academic Articles

Do Stronger Collective Property Rights Improve Household Welfare? Evidence from a Field Study in Fiji, World Development (Spring 2013)

Property Insecurity, Brooklyn Journal of International Law 38:1 (Winter 2012): 145-191

Security of Property Rights for Whom?, United Nations World Institute for Development Economics Research 2011:83 (November 2011)

Economic & Social Rights Fulfillment Index: Country Scores and Rankings, Journal of Human Rights 9:3 (August 2012): 230-261 (with Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and Susan Randolph)

An Index of Economic and Social Rights Fulfillments: Concept and Methodology, Journal of Human Rights 8:3 (September 2009):195-221 (with Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and Susan Randolph)

Values Under Siege: NAFTA, GATS, and the Propertization of Resources, NYU Environmental Law Journal 14:2 (2006): 481-520

Book Chapters

Assessing State Compliance with Obligations to Fulfill Economic & Social Rights-A Methodology and Application to the States of Brazil, in Direito ao Desenvolvimento, edited by Flavia Piovesan and Ines Virginia Prado Soares (Belo Horizonte, 2010) (with Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Patrick Guyer, Susan Randolph, and Louise Moreira Daniels)

A Role for the IFC in Integrating Environmental & Human Rights Standards in Core Project Covenants, in Transnational Corporations and Human Rights, edited by Oliver DeSchutter (Hart Publishing, 2007)

Working Papers

The Rules of Surfing (with Alisa Valderama)

Formal Law, Informal Social Norms, and Natural Resource Governance in Fiji's Qoliqolis

Property Rights, Growth, and Conflict

Policy Briefs

Beating the Resource Curse in Africa: A Global Effort, Africa in Fact (August 2012) (with Josh Greenstein)

Beating the Resource Curse: Global Governance Strategies for Democracy & Economic Development, Council on Foreign Relations (April 2012)

Integrating Environmental, Social & Governance Issues into Institutional Investment: A Handbook for Colleges and Universities (August 2007) (with Lisa Sachs and Morgan Simon)

Research Interests

Opportunity and exclusion in the global economy, poverty and inequality, economic development, property rights, natural resource management, global economic governance, emerging economies, and rule of law and informal social norms.