Sungjoon Cho

is Professor of Law and Norman and Edna Freehling Scholar at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. He teaches courses in international law, international trade law, international business transactions, and comparative law. In 2002, he received his S.J.D. (Doctor of Juridical Science) degree from Harvard Law School. Professor Cho’s works have been selected for the prestigious Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum twice (2007 and 2008). Professor Cho currently serves as Advisor on International Affairs and Global Industrial Cooperation to the Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy. He has recently been appointed Visiting Professor of Law at Fordham University Law School (fall 2011) and Northwestern University Law School (spring 2012). Additional biographical information can be found here.

Research Project

In his research he intends to divulge certain blind spots that rationalism tends to leave behind in its conventional analysis of the World Trade Organization (WTO) due to its inevitable paradigmatic assumptions and methodologies. Sungjoon aims to highlight that the old paradigm, represented by conventional optics (neo-realism and neo-liberalism), is increasingly unfitting, and even anachronistic in the contemporary international trade environment, characterized by global supply chains. As an alternative, the project envisions the "WTO's community" (Gemeinschaft) by employing a "sociological" approach which highlights ideational factors, such as norms and identity, in understanding the WTO as well as its members' behaviors.