Fellows’ Projects
NML’s Fellows work on a variety of structured projects and contribute to NML’s programmatic work. Highlight below are notable projects undertaken by NML’s Fellows over the years.
In the summer of 2020, a group of NML Legal Fellows and staff contributed to a report entitled "Reconceptualizing Free Trade Agreements Through a Sustainable Development Lens," which was submitted to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) Policy Hackathon on Model Provisions for Trade in Times of Crisis and Pandemic in Regional and Other Trade Agreements. The report was recognized as one of a handful of excellent contributions and is featured in UNESCAP's online repository as part of an emerging area of study.
For several years, New Markets Lab President Professor Katrin Kuhlmann led a three-week independent clinic with Harvard Law School (HLS) students focused on the relationship between entrepreneurship and trade. Students were able to see firsthand the impact of the economic legal and regulatory environment on development and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Each program started with a Washington D.C.-based workshop covering aspects of trade, investment, and economic law. Through field experience in Tanzania, the independent clinic then exposed HLS students to the role of government, NGOs, small businesses, and international institutions in interacting with and shaping the enabling environment to encourage economic and agricultural development and food security at the grassroots level.
Testimonial by Alix Boberg (LL.M ’15): I left Tanzania with memories of cloves, tomato farms and Masai warriors. But my experience with New Markets Lab also impressed on me a greater appreciation of how trade lawyers can assist development far beyond concessions in a trade agreement [...] Trade is practice – the collective practice of enterprises working together in a value chain to reach markets locally and overseas. Trade lawyers and policy makers can and should connect high-level policies to that practice, and thereby demonstrate their development commitment to countries around the world.
