Biography

Richard Chen joined the William S. Richardson School of Law in 2019 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2021. He previously taught at the law schools of the University of Maine and Pepperdine University. At Richardson, he teaches Contracts, International Economic Law, and Remedies and serves as the Director of International Programs.

In 2023, Professor Chen received the University of Hawai‘i’s highest teaching award, the Board of Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Teaching. He has twice had the honor of serving as the faculty commencement speaker, elected by the graduating classes of 2022 and 2024.

Professor Chen’s research focuses on international investment law, exploring in particular how the system can be reformed to more fairly serve the interests of developing countries. His recent work has examined the decision-making processes and reasoning methods used by investment treaty arbitral tribunals. He has also written about optimizing the practice of precedent in different institutional contexts, including both domestic courts and international tribunals. His scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Journal of International Law, Harvard International Law Journal, Virginia Journal of International Law, and William & Mary Law Review. He is currently an editor for ASIL Insights, a publication of the American Society of International Law.

After graduating from Harvard Law School, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, Professor Chen clerked for the Honorable Raymond C. Fisher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He then worked as an associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP in Los Angeles, specializing in complex business litigation, before returning to the Ninth Circuit to clerk for the Honorable Paul J. Watford during his first term on the court.

Publications

• Selective Formalism in Investment Treaty Arbitration, 99 Tul. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025).
• The Substantive Value of Diversity in Investment Treaty Arbitration, 61 Va. J. Int’l L. 431 (2021). SSRN
• Summary Dispositions as Precedent, 61 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 691 (2020). SSRN | ScholarSpace
• Precedent and Dialogue in Investment Treaty Arbitration, 60 Harv. Int’l L.J. 47 (2019). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• Crafting Precedent, 131 Harv. L. Rev. 543 (2017) (with Paul J. Watford & Marco Basile). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• Bilateral Investment Treaties and Domestic Institutional Reform, 55 Colum. J. Transnat’l L. 547 (2017). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• A Contractual Approach to Investor-State Regulatory Disputes, 40 Yale J. Int’l L. 295 (2015). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• Suboptimal Human Rights Decision-Making, 42 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 645 (2015). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• Note, Organizational Irrationality and Corporate Human Rights Violations, 122 Harv. L. Rev. 1931 (2009). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace