Christiana Ochoa

Christiana Ochoa’s research seeks to understand how economic activity impacts human and ecological well-being. Her theoretical and empirical research relies on international and comparative law, particularly in the fields of Business & Human Rights, Law & Development, International Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment. She brings her field work—as well as her practice experience at the global law firm Clifford Chance and with a number of human rights and humanitarian non-governmental organizations in Latin America—to her research questions and classroom teaching. She teaches Contracts as well as International Law, International Business Transactions, Human Rights, and Law & Development.

Her scholarship in these areas has been published and is forthcoming in the Yale Journal of International Law, Harvard International Law Journal, Virginia Journal of International Law, Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law, Duke Journal of International & Comparative Law, and Human Rights Quarterly, among others. Her work has also been published internationally, including in Germany, Colombia, and Korea. Her first documentary film, Otra Cosa No Hay (There is Nothing Else), was completed in 2014, received film festival acclaim, and has been viewed by audiences around the world.

Professor Ochoa has been recognized for her research, teaching, and service, and has held numerous administrative positions at the Law School, campus and university level. In 2018, she was named an Indiana University Class of 1950 Herman B Wells Endowed Professor. Individually, and as part of research teams, she has won competitive funding from numerous sources, including from the Mellon Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education. In 2015, she was a co-PI for a prestigious Sawyer Seminar on Documentary Media and Historical Transformations. Within the Law School, she has served as Executive Associate Dean, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs, and as Latin America Program Director for the Stewart Center on the Global Legal Profession. She has held campus-wide leadership positions, including as Associate Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs and as a founding Associate Director of the Center for Documentary Research and Practice. At the university level, she is the founding Academic Director of the IU Mexico Gateway, IU’s only office in Latin America. She has also served on various committees for AALS and ASIL.