The US and EU are negotiating a new targeted critical minerals agreement that should help European auto companies benefit from clean vehicle tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act.
On March 22, panelists discussed what such a US-EU mini-trade agreement might look like, and how it might be written to withstand Congressional and potential legal scrutiny.
Featured Speakers:
Professor Kathleen Claussen, Georgetown Law
Cathy Koch, EY Global Sustainability Tax Leader, and former Chief Policy Advisor to Majority Leader Harry Reid for Tax and Economics
Kelly Ann Shaw, Partner, Hogan Lovells and former Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council
Moderator: Peter S. Rashish, Vice President and Director, Geoeconomics Program, American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Latest articles: Trade Mini-Deals; Improvised Implementation of Executive Agreements
Recent blog posts: “What’s A Free Trade Agreement Anyway?”, “Trade Agreement Transparency“, “The President’s Trade Agreement Authority: From Fisheries to IPEF“
by Professor Kathleen Claussen
Speaker Biographies:
Kathleen Claussen is Professor at Georgetown Law. Her work has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review, among others, as well as in leading international law journals. One of her articles on international investment disputes, The International Claims Trade, was awarded the Smit-Lowenfeld Prize in International Arbitration. Professor Claussen is also the co-founder of SAILS: the Consortium for the Study and Analysis of International Law Scholarship. She is the editor (with Geraldo Vidigal) of The Sustainability Revolution in Trade Agreements, forthcoming with Oxford University Press. She also co-edits an open-access textbook on international trade law together with Julian Arato, Joseph Weiler, and Sungjoon Cho. Professor Claussen has also blogged at Lawfare, Just Security, the International Economic Law & Policy Blog, and Opinio Juris, and is regularly featured on or consulted as an expert for various media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Marketplace, Bloomberg, and the Financial Times.
Professor Claussen has served as an arbitrator, as counsel, or as counsel to the tribunal in more than a dozen international trade and investment cases. She has been named to three arbitration rosters to serve as panel chair or panel member in state-to-state disputes. She is also regularly called upon to testify as an expert before legislative and independent review boards. In 2021-2022, she co-authored a study commissioned by the Administrative Conference of the United States on alternative dispute resolution in federal agency programs.
Professor Claussen has served as a visiting faculty member or invited researcher at numerous institutions around the world, including Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, the University of Cambridge Lauterpacht Centre for International Law where she was a Brandon Fellow, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, the iCourts Center of Excellence at the University of Copenhagen, the George C. Marshall Center for Security Studies, the University of Zurich and Collegium Helveticum, and the World Trade Institute. Prior to joining the Georgetown faculty in 2023, she was a member of the faculty at the University of Miami School of Law for five years.
Professor Claussen holds several leadership positions within international law and arbitration professional associations. In 2021, she was appointed co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Economic Law. Her other recent governance appointments include the American Society of International Law (ASIL) International Economic Law Interest Group, the ASIL Executive Council & Executive Committee, and the Junior International Law Scholars Association. She is also a member of the Academic Council of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration and the Academic Forum on Investor-State Dispute settlement.
Before joining the academy, Professor Claussen was Associate General Counsel at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in the Executive Office of the President. There, she represented the United States in trade dispute proceedings and served as a legal advisor for the United States in international trade negotiations. She also worked on economic security issues on behalf of USTR at the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force. In 2020-2021, she was an invited member of the Biden-Harris Transition Team, covering trade, commerce, and development agencies.
Earlier in her career, Professor Claussen was Legal Counsel at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague where she advised on disputes between countries, and on investment and commercial arbitrations involving countries and international organizations. She also clerked for the Honorable David F. Hamilton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. At Yale, Professor Claussen served on the board of the Yale Law Journal and was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal of International Law. She was awarded the Jerome Sayles Hess Fund Prize for excellence in international law and the Howard M. Holtzmann Fellowship in international dispute resolution.
Cathy Koch is an EY Global Sustainability Tax Leader. With more than 20 years of experience in private industry, the Senate, and public practice, Cathy now serves as EY Global Sustainability Tax Leader and Leader of Americas and Global Tax Policy Network. She previously worked for the firm from 2000 to mid-2004. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Georgetown.
Prior to joining Ey, Cathy served as Chief Policy Advisor to the Senate Majority Leader for Tax and Economics. She also led business outreach for the Leader and the Democratic Caucus. In this role, Cathy led all tax and economic policy initiatives for the Leader’s office and was central to strategy and communications on a broad spectrum of issues. She was deeply involved in every Congressional tax and budget measures since January 2013, when she joined Senator Reid’s office.
Cathy’s prior experience on the Hill included three and a half years on the Finance Committee, first as Staff Director for the Finance Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure, and then as the Tax Chief of the full committee. As the chief tax policy staffer on the Finance Committee, Cathy led the Committee’s tax policy legislative efforts, and she coordinated all communications and negotiations regarding tax issues with the Administration, Republican and Democrat Leadership and tax-writing committees in the House.
In addition to her experience on Capitol Hill, Cathy spent two years as the Director of U.S. Tax Policy for General Electric. She also served as a Director of Global Government Affairs at Amgen, Inc. where she was involved in site selection negotiations. Cathy began her private sector career working on tax policy at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Cathy started her tax career as an economist at the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Kelly Ann Shaw is the former Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, brings to bear a deep knowledge of U.S. international trade, investment, and economic law and policy drawn from her extensive public service at the White House, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), and the Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. Congress.
In her White House role, serving on both the National Security Council and National Economic Council, Kelly Ann led the Office of International Economic Affairs and played an instrumental role in a wide range of legislation, negotiations, and agreements, including the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and the China Phase One agreement. As a senior adviser to the president on matters of international economic policy, including trade, investment, development, global economics, energy, and the environment, she was directly involved in almost every major economic decision made at the Trump White House.
Kelly Ann also has served as lead U.S. negotiator at the G7, G20, and APEC and led the U.S.-UK Economic Working Group. As Republican Trade Counsel for the Committee on Ways and Means, Kelly Ann played an important role in formulating U.S. international trade and investment law, policy, and strategy. In her role as Assistant General Counsel for USTR based in Geneva, Switzerland, and Washington, D.C., she represented the United States in more than 40 World Trade Organization (WTO) disputes and in negotiations. She also served as a lead lawyer, negotiator, and adviser in other important international negotiations, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Prior to her distinguished government service, Kelly Ann was in private practice in Washington, D.C. She received her B.S. and B.A. from the University of Washington; an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science; and her J.D., from Columbia Law School.
Peter S. Rashish is Vice President and Director of the Geoeconomics Program at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. He is also a Senior Advisor to the European Policy Centre in Brussels and a member of the Board of Directors of the Jean Monnet Institute in Paris. He has previously served as Vice President for Europe and Eurasia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Senior Advisor for Europe at McLarty Associates, and has been a consultant to the World Bank, the German Marshall Fund, the Atlantic Council, the Bertelsmann Foundation, and UNCTAD.
He holds a BA from Harvard College and an MPhil from Oxford University.