Professor Lee is a law and development scholar and an international trade lawyer. He is currently heading the Law and Development Institute and has taught at leading universities throughout the United States, Asia, and Australia. He graduated in economics with academic distinction from the University of California at Berkeley and received law degrees from the University of Cambridge (B.A., M.A., Ph.D). He is a visiting scholar at Wake Forest University for the spring of 2012.

Author of Reclaiming Development in the World Trading System (Cambridge University Press, 2006, reprint 2009), Safeguard Measures in World Trade: The Legal Analysis (Kluwer Law International, 2nd ed. 2005, reprint 2007), and Law and Development Perspective on International Trade Law (co-authored, Cambridge University Press, 2011), Professor Lee has published over fifty scholarly articles, book volumes and chapters, in the areas of law and development, international economic law, comparative law, and international commercial arbitration. He has pioneered academic research on safeguard measures (emergency import restraint measures) under the World Trade Organization (WTO) system and developed the concept of “microtrade”, a new system of international trade designed to alleviate populations of the least-developed countries of extreme poverty. His work has focused on the impacts that domestic and international legal systems, particularly the legal framework for international trade, have on economic development. He is currently an associate editor of the Journal of World Trade and the founding editor-in-chief of the Law and Development Review.

Professor Lee has participated in a number of bilateral and multilateral negotiations on international trade and investment at international forums such as the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. He has appeared before WTO dispute settlement panels and the WTO Appellate Body as a government counsel, and advised national governments, international law firms, and consulting companies on international trade and development projects and major international commercial arbitration cases. He has frequently spoken on issues of law and development, international economic law, and the WTO at prominent forums including Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.