Michael Likosky examines the continuities and discontinuities between colonial and present-day high tech transnational legal orders. His concern is specifically with the colonial characteristics of the legal order which underpins the global high tech economy. He distinguishes the democratic and human rights rhetoric of this economy from a reality wherein the legal order is often used to reproduce colonial-type relationships. Just as in the colonial period, the expansion of trans-border commerce overlaps with democratic demands and human rights in complex, multifaceted and paradoxical ways. Through a case study looking at Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor, a high tech national development plan and foreign direct investment scheme, he examines how the transnational leaders of the high tech economy along with the Malaysian political elite react when human rights problems threaten to derail commercial plans.
Michael Likosky holds a JD and DPhil (Oxford Law), directs NYU's Center on Law & Public Finance and is a Senior Fellow at NYU's Institute for Public Knowledge. He was previously professor of International Economic Law at the University of London and has held posts and fellowships at Oxford Law, NYU Law, Wisconsin Law, Fordham Law, and Bonn. He has written five books on infrastructure and energy, financial crisis and reinvestment, high tech and industrial growth, oil and gas, mining, and political risk: Obama's Bank: Financing a Durable New Deal (Cambridge), Law, Infrastructure and Human Rights (Cambridge), Transnational Legal Processes (Cambridge), Privatizing Development (Martinus Nijhoff), and The Silicon Empire (Ashgate). His work has been supported by Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Arts and Humanities Research Council, Markle Foundation, Institute for a New Reflection on Governance, the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Chatham House. He is the recipient of the Jonathan Weiss Award for Public Interest Advocacy.
Michael is an Expert on public-private-partnerships to the Organization on Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the World Investment Reports, the World Development Reports, and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). Michael advises U.S. Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Christopher Dodd (D-CT, formerly); U.S. Treasury; U.S. Congressional Budget Office; U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT); New York State's Empire State Development Corporation; California State Assemblyman Max Blumenthal (24th District); California Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency; California Governor Jerry Brown; California's Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank; the Service Employees International Union's Capital Stewardship program; LiUNA's Capital Stewardship program; the Board of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; the Clinton Global Initiative; Euromoney; World Infrastructure Summit; Transparency International; and Trade Unions Congress.
He co-chairs the Task Force to Modernize California's State Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank at the direction of Governor Jerry Brown; an expert to the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Organization; a member of the Steering Committee of the New York City Transportation Manufacturing Action Plan Task Force; the board of the International Project Finance Association; a steering committee member of the American Society of Civil Engineers Transportation and Development Institute Committee on Sustainability and the Environment; and an advisory board member to Tree of Life Engineers to Iraq and Afghanistan; a member of the Académie Internationale de Droit Comparé Working Group on Precedent; a steering committee member of the Regional Plan Association's High Speed Rail project; and a fellow at the Center for State Innovation.
Likosky consults regularly for groups such as ABC, American Business Council, Arizona Technology Enterprises, Atlantic Investment Management, Barclays Bank (Principal Credit, Special Situations Group), Boston Consulting Group, the Carter Center, Causeway Capital Management, CBS, Cornwall Capital, Credit Suisse, Credit Suisse Equity, Deloitte, D.E. Shaw, Deutsche Bank (Distressed), ESPN, Eton Park, Fidelity Investment Management Limited (Asia ex-Japan), GMO LLC, Goldman Sachs (Investing), International Development Law Organization, Marathon Asset Management, the Merger Fund, Morgan Stanley, NBC, Och-Ziff Europe, OECD, Paul Weiss Garrison and Rifkind, Schroder Investment Management Limited, UBS, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Westchester Capital, Ranger Capital Group, Sansar Capital Management, and the Center for Media Education. He regularly writes commissioned reports tied to consultancies.
He contributes opinion pieces and appears regularly in outlets such as New York Times, New York Times Dealbook, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, McKinsey Matters, Marketplace Radio, Bond Buyer, American Banker, Business News Agency, Huffington Post, Oxford Amnesty Lectures, Engineering News-Record, Infrastructure Investor, Africa Investor, Reuters, Guardian UK, Los Angeles Times, Center for American Progress, Salon, The Atlantic, and Public-Private-Partnership Bulletin.
Michael delivers keynote and features talks at Yale University (Edward J. and Dorothy Kempf Memorial Fund), Oxford Law, Columbia Law, US Chamber of Commerce, BondBuyer Annual P3 Event (keynote), National Press Club Antitrust, Harvard University's Capital Matters, the American Society of Civil Engineers New Jersey Branch (keynote), Fairfield County Business Council, the American Society of Civil Engineers New York Metropolitan Section, International Project Finance Association, Project Finance
International (master classes), Infrastructure Investor Americas, and World Free Zone Convention.
