ABOUT
Thomas F. McInerney is an international lawyer, scholar, and strategist with a background in international and corporate law, global governance, regulation, rule of law, and development. He has worked in diverse sectors including academia, law firms, government, international organizations, and NGOs.
He is a member of the Faculty of Law at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand, and has taught in the Rule of Law for Development Program at Loyola University Chicago School of Law’s Rome Campus since 2011. From 2020 to 2024 he was Executive Director of Loyola’s rule of law program.
McInerney has advised international organizations, governments, and international NGOs including The Asia Foundation, Alliance Biodiversity-CIAT, International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), RECOFTC, Stockholm Environment Institute, UN Environment (UNE), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the World Health Organization (WHO), on developing and implementing innovative strategies and solutions to enhance global law, regulation, and governance. From 2013 to 2015 he was outside counsel to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
McInerney’s legal experience spans anti-corruption; climate finance and development; environmental law and policy; food and agriculture; human rights; international organizations; labor, land and natural resources; organizational compliance and ethics; and public international law.
His research focuses on the intersection of international rule of law, global governance, development, and regulation with extensive experience in the nexus of human rights and international environmental, natural resources, and agro-biodiversity law. He seeks to understand the drivers and processes of national and international legal, institutional, and governance change as a basis to improve outcomes for sustainable development, particularly for the most vulnerable.
His book Strategic Treaty Management: Practice and Implications (Cambridge University Press 2015) provides a novel framework for devising strategies, managing operations, gathering scientific data, and measuring the performance of multilateral regulatory agreements relating to arms control, the environment, global public health, human rights, and labor. From 2017 to 2018, he advised the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control strategic planning working group on what became the Global Strategy to Accelerate Tobacco Control.
From 2002 to 2009 he was General Counsel and from 2009 to 2012 Director of Research, Policy, and Strategic Initiatives for the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), a leading international organization dedicated to rule of law promotion based in Rome. In this latter role McInerney developed a research program on access to justice and legal empowerment relating to women, girls, indigenous people, and vulnerable populations. Securing a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Nike Foundation to support such research, he launched IDLO’s research function, built and managed a team of 50 staff and consultant researchers in 12 countries, and developed and managed eight international research projects. The projects culminated in 50 reports and papers and five books, which have contributed to the emphasis on people-centered justice in international rule of law assistance.
McInerney also oversaw IDLO’s Observer Mission to the United Nations and led its successful efforts to build partnerships with United Nations system organizations, including the UN Development Program (UNDP), the UN Rule of Law Unit, and Department of Peacekeeping Operations.
McInerney conceived, drafted, led expert and stakeholder consultations, and secured unanimous member state approval for IDLO’s innovative first strategic plan as part of an organizational change process. The strategy was recognized as a “promising vision” for rule of law and development in the American Journal of Comparative Law. Together, the research, collaborations, and strategy he led to the transformation of the organization into a major contributor to rule of law assistance globally.
From 1999 to 2002, as Program Manager with Social Accountability International, McInerney conducted research, drafting, and fundraising for the Business Principles for Countering Bribery, a leading corporate anti-corruption management system and predecessor to the World Economic Forum Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) and the ISO 37001 Anti-Corruption Management System. Prior to joining Social Accountability International, he practiced corporate and securities law with Dorsey & Whitney LLP and Ross & Hardies in New York.
He has trained and worked with hundreds of public officials, regulators, lawyers, and judges throughout the world on anti-corruption, private sector regulation, corporate governance and sustainability, international law, and rule of law development.
McInerney regularly writes and speaks on topics including rule of law, sustainability, international law, global governance, regulation, and international development. He writes the newsletter Rights, Regulation, Rule of Law on Substack. He is a member of the AI Legal, Ethics, and Governance Subgroup of the Geneva-based Group on Earth Observations.
He holds a BA in philosophy and government from the College of William and Mary, a MA in philosophy from Loyola University Chicago, a JD from DePaul University, and a PhD in development studies from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.
Based in Bangkok, Thailand, he is admitted to practice in the State of New York in the United States.