Outbound Investment Restrictions and International Law’s Challenge

Tuesday, October 21, 2025

2:30 - 3:30 pm (Eastern)

Furman Hall 316 and on Zoom

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This event is co-sponsored by the APEC Study Center at Columbia University.

About the event:

In January, the United States inaugurated restrictions on U.S. investment in certain Chinese advanced technology sectors. At the time, the Outbound Investment Rule was portrayed as an incremental measure, a modest extension to fill loopholes in the existing investment screening regime. But while perhaps the logical next step in the securitization of the economy, Professor Harlan Cohen of Fordham Law School argues that the Outbound Investment Rule actually reflects a momentous shift in the relationship between governments and business, one playing out in the United States and around the world and worth attention. Unlike traditional investment screening, he explains, the Outbound Investment Rule operates like a sanctions regime, designed not to protect the U.S. economy, but to hamper the advancement of another. And in so doing, the Outbound Investment Rule reveals a broader global shift to geoeconomic competition that existing international economic law rules are ill-suited to manage. Professor Cohen proposes new rules needed to minimize and manage the inevitable conflicts in a multipolar and competitive world.

About the speaker:

Harlan Grant Cohen is a Professor of Law at Fordham Law School. His teaching and research focus on international law, international trade, international legal theory, global governance, and U.S. foreign relations law.  Professor Cohen is a vice president of the American Society of International Law.  He is also a member of the board of editors of the Journal of International Economic Law and of the American Law Institute. Previously, he served as a member of the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law.

Professor José Enrique Alvarez will be the moderator.