When asked by The Hague Academy of International Law whether he wished to offer his General Course on International Law on the public or private side, Professor Lowenfeld answered: "Yes." In truth, Professor Lowenfeld defies the distinction between public and private international law. "I reject such sharp distinctions in international law," he says. "In most of the areas in which I work–- trade, international investment, airline regulation, monetary law, economic sanctions, arbitration-–there is so much overlap between public and private law that one could not draw any significant or useful distinctions."

Indeed, the topics that Lowenfeld has addressed in five decades of practice and scholarship are so diverse that it is impossible to label their author's "field." A random sampling of his writings includes: transborder kidnapping, investor-state dispute settlement, economic sanctions, enforcement of foreign judgments, and the International Monetary System. His books cover aviation law, public international law, international trade, private international law, and arbitration. Professor Lowenfeld is frequently an arbitrator in international disputes, public and private. He has argued before the US Supreme Court, the Iran-US Claims Tribunal, the International Court of Justice, and he has served as a Reporter in two major projects of the American Law Institute. His most recent work is a comprehensive Treatise on International Economic Law. Before coming to NYU, Professor Lowenfeld served as Deputy Legal Adviser of the US Department of State.

Professor Lowenfeld says that he will not accept any case that is not in some way related to his teaching; correspondingly, his students are told that they have a continuing obligation to keep him advised of cases, statutes, treaties, or whatever else they encounter that may interest him–-in other words, almost everything.

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