Dr. Idriss Fofana

Biography

Idriss Fofana is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Law School, specializing in international law, comparative law, legal history, and law and colonialism. His research traces the evolution of international law and inter-polity order in Africa and Asia from the seventeenth century onward, with a focus on African and Asian interactions with transnational legal regimes. His work engages critical issues such as the international protection of private property, the relationship between territory and decolonization, and the legal frameworks surrounding international labor migration. He is currently developing a series of articles that examine the historical narratives and theoretical underpinnings of international law, emphasizing the implications of intertemporal law and claims for reparations related to historical injustices. Professor Fofana is particularly interested in how international law can incorporate the historical practices of non-Western peoples and polities. He is working on a manuscript that addresses the regulation of Chinese-West African labor migration from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. His scholarship has been published in various prestigious journals, and he is co-editing an upcoming volume on International Legal Histories of Precolonial Africa with Rabiat Akande. Fofana's experience includes serving as a Judicial Fellow for Judge Abdulqawi Yusuf at the International Court of Justice and participating as a visiting scholar at multiple esteemed institutions.

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