William Burke-White joined the Penn Law faculty in 2005. His research examines the influence of international law on international politics and state behavior. He has written widely on the structure of international legal regimes, the effectiveness of international courts and tribunals, investor-state arbitration, investment protection, international criminal law, transitional justice, and human rights. His scholarship addresses the operation of international tribunals, post conflict justice systems, the International Criminal Court, human rights, sovereign bankruptcy, state responses to emergencies, amnesty legislation and the “international constitutional moment” after September 11. In 2007 he received the Robert A. Gorman Award for Excellence in Teaching.

He regularly serves as an expert for foreign governments, particularly the government of Argentina, in international investment disputes and has advised the Democratic Republic of Congo on the creation of international criminal accountability mechanisms for the massive crimes committed there in the 1990s. Previously he has worked with the Government of Cambodia and the U.N. Transitional Administration in East Timor on the establishment of international criminal tribunals. Burke-White has also served as Special Rapporteur and Advisor to the Legal and Constitutional Commission of the Government of Rwanda for the drafting of a new Rwandan constitution, as visiting scholar at the International Criminal Court, as legal assistant at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and in the international law group at Clifford Chance, L.L.P. in London.