Professor Vandevelde has 20 years of experience in the area of international investment law. He represented the United States in investment-related disputes before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal and served as the lead attorney within the State Department on investment matters, participating in the preparation of the U.S. Model BIT and in the negotiation of US BITs. In 1992, he authored United States Investment Treaties (Kluwer). Since then, he has published numerous articles on BITs, has spoken about these agreements around the world, and has served as a consultant on BITs to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to foreign governments and to private investors. He currently is Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, California, where he served as Dean from 1994 to 2005. He earned his law degree from Harvard Law School and an undergraduate degree in sociology from the University of Louisville.