Idriss Fofana

Idriss is a graduating J.D. student at Yale Law School, where he specializes in international law, legal history, and law and development. He is concurrently pursuing a Ph.D. in international and global history at Columbia University. His research focuses on the historical and contemporary role of African and Asian countries in the development of international law. During the fellowship period, he plans to investigate how emerging international anti-corruption norms have influenced the Chinese government’s overseas investment policy and judicial cooperation with Southeast Asian and African countries. His dissertation recounts the experience of Chinese and West African laborers who built the first railway in the Congo Free State in the 1890s and explores the ensuing debates in China and West Africa over international labor and migration norms. A native of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, Idriss completed his undergraduate degree in physics and history at Harvard College.