James T. Gathii is the Wing-Tat Lee Chair in International Law and Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law since July 2012. He is a graduate of the University of Nairobi, Kenya, and Harvard Law School. He sits on the board of editors of the Journal of African Law and the Journal of International Trade Law and Policy, among others. Between 2014 and 2022, he was on the Board of editors of the American Journal of International Law. He is a past Vice-President of the American Society of International Law.

He is co-editor in Chief of the African Journal of International Economic Law (AfJIEL) and a founding Editor of Afronomicslaw and one of the convenors of the African Sovereign Debt Justice Network (AfSDJN). He was the Grotius Lecturer at the 2020 American Society of International Law Virtual Annual Meeting. He gave the Opening Keynote Address at the 2023 Canadian Council of International Law Annual Meeting and the 2022 PluriCourts Annual Lecture. His research and teaching interests are in Public International Law, International Trade Law, Third World Approaches to International Law, (TWAIL), Comparative Constitutional Law and Human Rights.

He has sat as an arbitrator in two international commercial arbitrations and one ISDS case hosted by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague. He is a founding member of the TWAIL network. He is an elected member of the International Academy of International Law. He has consulted for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, (OHCHR), and the Economic Commission for Africa, (ECA), among others. His books include African Regional Trade Agreements as Legal Regimes (Cambridge University Press, 2011, Paperback 2013); War, Commerce and International Law (Oxford University Press, 2010); and The Contested Empowerment of Kenya’s Judiciary, 2010-2015: A Historical Institutional Analysis, (Sheria Publishing House, 2016); The Performance of Africa’s International Courts: Using Litigation for Political, Legal, and Social Change, (Oxford University Press in 2020); How to Reform the Global Debt and Financial Architecture, (Sheria Publishing House (2023) and Transforming Climate Finance in an Era of Sovereign Debt Distress, (Sheria Publishing House (2023). In addition to his books, Professor Gathii has authored over 100 articles and book chapters.