Xuejiao (Katniss) Li

Xuejiao (Katniss) Li (李雪皎) is a S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School. Her research examines law and economic statecraft, with a focus on the interactions among governments, firms, and lawyers in the legislation, implementation, and enforcement of regulatory regimes. Her dissertation analyzes export control laws in China, the United States, and Japan through a combination of fieldwork, interviews, and quantitative analysis. Her broader research includes collaborative empirical projects with political scientists through the Research on Economic Security and Peace project, based at Oxford and Harvard Universities.  

Li’s professional experience includes practicing as an export controls and sanctions lawyer in Beijing, where she advised multinational firms amid U.S.–China trade tensions. She also contributed to a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) policy report on international trade treaty-making in Geneva. As a visiting scholar at Sophia University in Tokyo, she researched trade and economic security policy.  

Research interests: Law and economic statecraft; international trade law; international business transactions; business and legal strategies in geoeconomics and the legal profession.