University of Georgia
School of Law
Athens, GA 30602
United States
B.A., Indiana University
J.D., University of Texas
International Trade and Workers Rights
International Labor Law
International Law
U.S. Labor Law
Desirée LeClercq will join the University of Georgia School of Law in the fall of 2024 as an assistant professor. She will teach International Trade and Workers Rights, International Labor Law, International Law and U.S. Labor Law. She will also serve as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center and as the faculty adviser for the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law.
LeClercq comes to UGA from Cornell University, where she was an assistant professor in the School of Industrial Labor Relations and an associate faculty member in the Law School for four years. She won the 2020 MacIntyre Award for Exemplary Teaching & Advising and the 2022 Women’s Leadership Initiative Leading Ladies Award.
Specializing in international and labor law, LeClercq has recently published extensively in flagship and specialty law reviews, including the Fordham Law Review, the Virginia Journal of International Law, the Journal of International Economic Law, the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, the Administrative Law Review, the American University Law Review and the Berkeley Journal of International Law. Notably, her Columbia Journal of Transnational Law article titled “A Worker-Centered Trade Policy” won the ComplianceNet Outstanding Junior Publication Award. LeClercq has also contributed several book chapters on international trade and labor, and she is a frequent contributor to Fortune.
Previously she served as a director of labor affairs in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative from 2016 to 2020, during which time she was an adjunct professor at the American University Washington College of Law. Additionally, LeClercq worked for nearly a decade as a legal officer at the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and served as staff counsel for the chairman of the National Labor Relations Board.
LeClercq is active in the American Society of International Law and serves on the Executive Committee of the AALS Human Rights and Labor Relations and Employment Law sections. Also, since 2022, she has served as a designated candidate to chair European Union Trade and Sustainable Expert Panel Proceedings.
She earned her B. A. with high honors from Indiana University and her J.D. with high honors from the University of Texas, where she was the articles and notes editor for the Texas International Law Journal.
Book Chapters
Strengthening Labor Rights in the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement: A Lost Opportunity? in The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement: Its Substance and Impact on International Trade, NAFTA, and Other FTAS (David A. Gantz & Jorge Huerta Goldman, eds., 2021) (with Karen Curtis).
World Trade Organization, in International Labor and Employment (Ute Krudewagen & Anne Radolinski, eds. 2020).
Labor Provisions in U.S. Free Trade Agreements Under Trade Promotion Authority, in International Labor and Employment (Ute Krudewagen & Anne Radolinski, eds. 2020).
ARTICLES
A Worker-Centered Trade Policy, 61 Colum. J. Transnat'l L. 733 (2023).
Rights-Based Sanctions Procedures, 75 Admin. L. Rev. 105 (2023).
Judicial Review of Emergency Administration, 72 Am. U. L. Rev. 66 (2022).
Why Conflict Between Economic Development and International Social Rights is Inevitable, 40 Berkeley J. Int'l L. 1 (2022).
Invisible Workers, 116 AJIL Unbound 107 (2022).
Outsourcing Enforcement, 62 Va. J. Int’l L. 271 (2022).
The Disparate Treatment of Rights in U.S. Trade, 90 Fordham L. Rev. 1 (2021).
A Rules-Based Approach to Jam’s Restrictive Immunity: Implications for International Organizations, 58 Hous. L. Rev. 55 (2020).
Strengthening the Southern African Development Community: A Critique of the International Labor Organization’s Development Assistance in Swaziland and Zimbabwe, 27 Mich. State Int’l L. Rev. 41 (2018).
Sea Change: New Rulemaking Procedures at the International Labour Organization, 22 ILSA J. Int’l & Compar. L. 1 (2015).
ILO Labor Standards and Trade Agreements: A Case for Consistency, 36 Compar. Lab. L. & Pol’y J. 347 (2014) (with Franz Christian Ebert & Jordi Agusti-Panareda).
Section 8(f) Prehire Agreements and the Exception to Majority Representation: Are Construction Workers Getting the Shaft? 27 Hofstra Lab. & Emp. L.J. 51 (2009).
A Snapshot of the NLRB’s Laboratory Conditions Doctrine: Erroneous Assumptions of Coercion in Surveillance Cases, 59 Lab. L.J. 154 (2008).