About
Professor Kiser teaches Sources of International Law and International Trade & Investment. She is an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, where she has served for almost two decades in positions leading and providing legal advice to U.S. delegations in a variety of multilateral negotiations. Most recently, she represented the United States at the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH), and the International Institute for the Unification of Private International Law (UNIDROIT) in negotiations on a variety of international commercial matters, including international arbitration, and other forms of dispute settlement.
She also has extensive substantive expertise in trade and investment. She currently provides legal advice on environmental matters related to international trade and for over a decade provided legal advice on the negotiation and implementation of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and disputes related to BITs and investment chapters of free trade agreements. She also has experience providing legal advice on a variety of international policy matters related to national security, including with the review of transactions by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and negotiations at the World Health Organization related to U.S. global health security goals, such as pandemic preparedness, response and prevention. Her expertise in dispute settlement includes participation in cases before the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal and ad hoc international tribunals under various international investment agreements.
She has served as an Adjunct Professor at the Washington School of Law at American University in Washington, D.C. Before joining the State Department in 2006, Ms. Kizer worked as an attorney at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., where she specialized in international dispute resolution and litigation. She also clerked for Judge Jane R. Roth on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Before becoming an attorney, she worked as an analyst in the International Affairs Division of the Office of Management and Budget, where her duties included analyzing foreign aid and advising on international trade policy. She has a J.D. from the University of Chicago, an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and a B.A. from the University of Arizona.