Rachel Brewster's scholarly research and teaching focus on international economic law and international dispute settlement. She writes on World Trade Organization (WTO) law, anti-corruption law (including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the OECD Anti-Bribery Treaty), and international relations theory. Brewster serves as co-director of Duke's Center for International and Comparative Law and co-chair of Duke's JD-LLM in International and Comparative Law Program.
Brewster's recent publications include: "Arbitrating Corruption," 101 Washington University Law Review 923 (2024); "Flexible Institution Building in the International Anti-Corruption Regime: Proposing a Transnational Asset Recovery Mechanism," 117 American Journal of International Law 559 (2023) (with Laurence Helfer and Cecily Rose); "ESG Accountability: Focusing on the Corporate Enterprise," 2022 Wisconsin Law Review 1367 (2022).
Brewster came to Duke Law in July 2012 from Harvard University where she was an assistant professor of law and affiliate faculty member of The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. While there, Brewster took a leave of absence to serve as legal counsel in the Office of the United States Trade Representative in 2008. Before joining Harvard, Brewster was as a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School and clerked for Judge Phyllis A. Kravitch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She has also taught at the University of Hamburg’s Institute of Law and Economics and the University of St. Gallen.
Brewster received her BA and JD from the University of Virginia, where she was an article editor for the Virginia Law Review. She holds a PhD in political science from the University of North Carolina — Chapel Hill, where she received the John Patrick Hagan Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.
