Inaugural Trevisani Professor in International Law
Katharine G. Young, the Robert A. Trevisani Dean’s Faculty Fellow at Boston College Law School, was named the inaugural Robert A. Trevisani Professor in International Law, an award designed to enhance global awareness and education in areas that promote practice readiness.
Young, a former Dean’s Distinguished Scholar who joined BC Law as an associate professor in 2013, is a foremost expert in international law, contracts, comparative law, and law and gender. Among other issues, her work examines economic and social rights, the role of positive legal obligations, and the distributive and legal challenges that are presented by rights of access to health care, housing, and education.
“ Professor Young is an absolutely stellar international legal scholar, whose academic work and reputation have national and international reach. Her institutional leadership has been vital to the school. ”
“Professor Young is an absolutely stellar international legal scholar, whose academic work and reputation have national and international reach,” said Odette Lienau, the Marianne D. Short, Esq., Dean and Professor of Law, when she announced the new position. “Her institutional leadership has been vital to the school. For example, during her three-year term as associate dean for Faculty and Global Programs, she played a central role in driving our global curriculum, expanding international opportunities, and recruiting exceptional faculty and students. She is a trusted mentor across campus and a cornerstone of our fantastic international law community.”
This spring, Young will serve as the Sullivan & Cromwell Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where she will teach Contracts and a seminar on Economic and Social Rights, and where she had studied for a Master of Law (LL.M.) degree and later earned a Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) degree. In spring 2025, she was the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.
In fall 2025, she was elected to the American Law Institute, an independent organization of judges, lawyers, and scholars, who contribute their expertise to the institute’s development of restatements, principles, and model codes, which has long shaped courts and legislatures nationwide.
Prior to joining BC Law, Young, a native Australian, was an associate professor at the Australian National University and a Byse Teaching Fellow at Harvard Law School. She completed fellowships with Harvard University’s Project on Justice, Welfare, and Economics, the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and was a Frank Knox Fellow during her Harvard studies.
Earlier in her career, she clerked for Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG of the Australian High Court, worked for law firms in Melbourne and New York City, and for public interest organizations in Accra, Ghana, and at the United Nations in Bonn, Germany. She holds a B.A., LL. B. (Hons) from the University of Melbourne, where she graduated first in her class, and studied law in German at the University of Heidelberg.
Young has authored Constituting Economic and Social Rights (2012) and co-edited The Future of Economic and Social Rights (2019) and The Public Law of Gender (2016). Most recently, she was invited to co-edit The Oxford Handbook on Economic and Social Rights—the first in-depth treatment of the field—which will feature chapters by 52 scholars from diverse disciplines and regions about the state of these rights in the 21st century. Scheduled for release in 2027, it’s anticipated to be the definitive volume on the various rights enshrined in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and entrenched in a variety of constitutional and legislative instruments around the world.
“ Our students have immense energy and curiosity for understanding law’s applications across the world, and for how their careers will shape, and be shaped by, its transnational dimensions. At a time of significant headwinds for international law, this is incredibly exciting! ”
“It’s a wonderful honor to assume this inaugural chair,” said Young. “Robert Trevisani is to be commended for his generosity to Boston College, and for the expansive vision that underlies it. Our students have immense energy and curiosity for understanding law’s applications across the world, and for how their careers will shape, and be shaped by, its transnational dimensions. At a time of significant headwinds for international law, this is incredibly exciting!”
Trevisani '55, J.D. '58, P'90—is a Triple Eagle, having graduated from Boston College High School in 1951— whose munificence established the professorship to be awarded to BC Law faculty who have demonstrated excellence in research and teaching.
He told BC Law Magazine that while he credits his BC undergraduate professors for opening his world to see how vast and wide it truly was beyond Boston, it was his BC Law professors who taught him to think independently and realize that no challenge was overwhelming.
“As a consequence, a rewarding and fulfilling professional career took me to countries throughout the world,” he said. “During stressful and challenging professional times, the discipline and inspiration inculcated by the Law School faculty would help me carry the day.”
Over his long career, he also served as an occasional adjunct professor of international mergers and acquisitions at BC Law.