A Conversation with Ruth Okediji, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

February 24, 2025
On-campus at Cornell University and via Zoom

Ruth Okediji; Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, Co-Director of Berkman Klein Center

Ruth L. Okediji is the Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Co-Director of Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Founding Faculty Director of the Harvard Program on Biblical Law & Christian Legal Studies, and Founding Faculty Director of the Center for the Study of African Societies and Economies (CSASE). Professor Okediji teaches contracts, intellectual property (IP), Law and Development, AI in the Just Society, and courses on Biblical Law. Her research and scholarship examine innovation policy, the digital economy, and global knowledge governance. She has authored an extensive array of influential articles, commissioned papers, and book chapters on the relationship between intellectual property, innovation, and human wellbeing.

Professor Okediji was a member of the U.S. National Academies Board on Science, Technology and Policy Committee on the Impact of Copyright Policy on Innovation in the Digital Era, and in 2021 she completed service as Co-Chair of the National Academies Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy Committee on Advancing Commercialization from the Federal Laboratories. She advises governments and international organizations on a variety of issues at the intersection of innovation policy, AI, and human development.

Over the course of her career, Professor Okediji has received numerous awards and distinctions for teaching, advising, and mentoring. These include “Professor Most Likely to Go Beyond the Call of Duty” and the Student Bar Association’s “Outstanding Professor Award.” She is a two- time recipient of the Harvard Law School Women’s Law Association “Shatter the Ceiling” Award. She has been named one of the 50 most influential figures in the field of intellectual property by Managing IP and she received the 2019 Public Knowledge IP3 Award. In 2023 she was awarded the Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters.

Professor Okediji served as an expert to the Africa Group and lead negotiator for the 2013 Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled. In 2024 she served as the Government of Nigeria’s expert negotiator for the WIPO Diplomatic Conference on Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge.

Professor Okediji serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of World Intellectual Property Law and the Journal of International Economic Law. She is the immediate past-President of the Order of the Coif, an elected member of the American Law Institute, and an appointed member to the American Bar Association’s Presidential Taskforce on Artificial Intelligence and the Law.