Professor Uché Ewelukwa Ofodile

Professor Uche Ewelukwa Ofodile is the  E.J. Ball Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law and was previously the Arkansas Bar Foundation Professor of Law at the same institution. She is also an Affiliated Professor of the Department of Political Science and of African and African American Studies at the University of Arkansas’ J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. She is a Senior Fellow of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government and an Honorary Fellow of the Asian Institute of Financial Law in Hong Kong. In 2021, Professor Ofodile was elected to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Professor Ofodile’s teaching, research, and scholarship focuses on intellectual property law, business and corporate law, food law, arbitration, international trade and investment law, as well as technology and the law.  She is an award-winning legal scholar who has been featured in legal magazines and publications and whose articles have appeared in leading national and international law journals as well as in magazines, newspapers, and blogs. She is currently working on two books, Legal Aspects of China-Africa Trade, Business and Investment (under contract, Oxford University Press) and Business, Human Rights and Sustainability in Africa (under contract, Routledge).

Professor Ofodile has advised numerous governments, international organizations, businesses, and public interest organizations on a range of issues within her fields of expertise. She currently serves on the Editorial Advisory Committee of International Legal Material, a publication of the American Society of International Law (ASIL), and is co-editor of the African Arbitration Association Blog. She has served as a Book Review Editor for The Law & Practice of International Courts and Tribunals, a leading peer-reviewed journal on international adjudication.

Professor Ofodile is an active member of the American Bar Association Section of International Law and has served the organization in numerous leadership positions including as Co-Chair of the International Investment and Development Committee, Co-Chair of the Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility, Vice-Chair of the International Intellectual Property Committee, Senior Advisor to the Human Rights Committee, and as a member of the Steering Group of the Anti-Corruption Committee. She has also served as the Co-Chair of ASIL’s Intellectual Property Interest Group and Africa Interest Group and as the Secretary-General of the African Society of International Law. An active member of the Nigerian Bar Association, Professor Ofodile currently serves as the Deputy Head of the Research & Documentation Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association Women Forum.

Professor Ofodile has taught, spoken and/or lectured at many universities around the world including Columbia University, Tufts University, the American University of Armenia, the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, and the Trade Policy Training Center in Africa based in Tanzania. She is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the British Chevening Scholarship as well as awards from the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, the American Bar Association Section of International Law, the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law, the Albert Einstein Institution, and the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA–Nigeria). Passionate about demystifying the law and legal empowerment, Professor Ofodile is the founder and convenor of ‘Patent Bootcamp for Women and Minorities in STEM.'

Professor Ofodile holds an LL.B. from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, an LL.M. (in International Business Law) from the University College London, an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, and an SJD from Harvard Law School.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

• Intellectual Property Law
• Business Law & Corporate Law
• Food Law
• International Trade/Investment Law
• International Dispute Settlement (Arbitration/Mediation)
• Technology and the Law