Elena Chachko is an Assistant Professor of Law at Berkeley Law School. Before joining the faculty in 2023, she was the inaugural Rappaport Fellow at Harvard Law School and a Miller Fellow at Berkeley Law. Professor Chachko studies and teaches administrative law and institutions. Drawing on experience in diplomacy and intelligence analysis, her research also explores foreign relations law and the intersection of law, national security, and geopolitics, with a focus on economic statecraft.
Professor Chachko’s recent projects examine executive orders and presidential control of the administrative state, international cooperation in the administrative state, emergency governance of domestic and international institutions, the regulation of economic statecraft, and the security and geopolitical dimensions of technology governance. Her interdisciplinary work draws extensively on political science and social science research methods.
Her scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in the American Journal of International Law, California Law Review, UC Davis Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Stanford Technology Law Review, William & Mary Law Review, and Yale Journal of International Law, among other publications. She has also written for Lawfare, Just Security, The Regulatory Review, Balkinization, and Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice & Comment.
Professor Chachko’s research has received several awards, including the 2020 Mike Lewis Prize for national security law scholarship, the Harvard Law School Irving Oberman constitutional law writing prize, and the Harvard Law School Mancini writing prize. She is a member of the Berkeley Working Group on Emerging Technology Governance, led by Secretary Janet Napolitano and Professor Andrew Reddy at the Goldman School of Public Policy. She also advised the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) on a study of international regulatory cooperation. Her work has been covered in The New York Times, NPR, BBC, Vox, L’Express, and other media.
Professor Chachko previously held fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, and Harvard’s Weatherhead Center. She earned her S.J.D. and LL.M. from Harvard Law School and an LL.B. in law and international relations from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Representative Publications (for the full list see Publications tab):
The President and the Administrative State
- International Regulatory Cooperation in Agency Practice: Assessment and Best Practices, Report for the Administrative Conference of the United States (April 2025) (with Kathleen Claussen & David Zaring)
- The Anti-Regulation Quartet and Internationally Informed Regulation, Harvard Law Review Online (Aug. 6, 2024)
- Toward Regulatory Isolationism? The International Elements of Agency Power, 57 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 57 (2023)
- Administrative National Security, 108 Georgetown L.J. 1063 (2020)
Emergency Governance
- Emergency Powers for Good, 66 William & Mary L. Rev. 1 (2024) (with Katerina Linos)
- Ukraine and the Emergency Powers of International Institutions, 116 Am. J. Int’l L. 775 (2022) (with Katerina Linos)
Economic Statecraft
- Virtue Sanctioning, 84 Ohio St. L.J. 1435 (2024)
- A Watershed Moment for Sanctions? Russia, Ukraine, and the Economic Battlefield, 116 Am. J. Int’l L. Unbound 135 (2022)
- National Security by Platform, 25 Stan. Tech. L. Rev. 354 (2022)
- Due Process Is in the Details: U.S. Targeted Sanctions and International Human Rights Law, Am. J. Int’l L. Unbound (2019) (invited symposium contribution)
- Foreign Affairs in Court: Lessons from CJEU Targeted Sanctions Jurisprudence, 44 Yale J. Int’l L. 1 (2019)
Education
SJD, Harvard Law School (2022)
LLM, Harvard Law School (2016)
LLB (Law and International Relations), Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2014)
Elena Chachko is not teaching any Law courses in Spring 2026.
Courses During Other Semesters
| Semester | Course Num | Course Title |  Teaching Evaluations | Fall 2025 | 223 sec. 001 | Administrative Law | View Teaching Evaluation | Spring 2025 | 220G sec. 001 | Public Law and Policy Workshop | View Teaching Evaluation | 226.2 sec. 001 | Foreign Relations Law | View Teaching Evaluation |
|---|
Trump orders ‘blockade’ of sanctioned oil tankers leaving, entering Venezuela
American presidents have broad discretion to deploy U.S. forces abroad, but Trump’s asserted blockade marks a new test of presidential authority, said international law scholar Elena Chachko of UC Berkeley Law School.
Blockades have traditionally been treated as permissible “instruments of war,” but only under strict conditions, Chachko said. “There are serious questions on both the domestic law front and international law front,” she added.
Drug costs and tariffs lost?
Assistant Professor Elena Chachko weights in on the recent UC Court of Appeal ruling on Trump’s tariffs.
Professor Elena Chachko Analyzes Impact of Executive Order on U.S. International Regulatory Cooperation
Chachko’s research for the Administrative Conference of the United States, authored with two colleagues, includes interviews with government and outside officials and a one-day public forum in Washington, D.C.
DeSantis used his emergency powers to get ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ built
Elena Chachko, a law professor at UC Berkeley Law School, said that both Trump and Biden employed emergency power in broad and ambitious ways. When it comes to the president’s power, Chachko said the court is typically a check on the executive branch.
Student Summer Work Series: Rising 2L Alex Kang Brings Global Perspective to U.S. Court of International Trade
Eager to help develop “workable tools for navigating real-world, cross-border issues,” Kang is getting a close view of hot-button trade issues affecting businesses across myriad industries.
What Trump’s national emergencies could mean for American democracy
Elena Chachko, an assistant professor of law at Berkeley Law School, says it’s the president’s pushing of boundaries — and the legal challenges that follow — that will ultimately define how emergency powers can be used.
“This is what happens when you take an instrument that has been very useful for many administrations, for many years, and now you overextend it,” she says. “You use it to do novel things with questionable legal basis, and what you do is invite pushback and invite criticism and invite limitations.”
Why can Trump just say everything is an “emergency” and do whatever he wants?
“You have this dynamic of presidents increasingly relying on emergency powers to do things that are not directly related to any actual emergency in the traditional understanding of that term,” said Elena Chachko, an assistant professor at Berkeley Law School.
Paging Checks and Balances: International Expert Outlines National Security Risks From Growing Executive Branch Power
Former U.S. Department of State legal adviser meets with UC Berkeley Law students to discuss the dangers posed by an expanding institutional imbalance in American foreign affairs.
Wake Up To Money
Assistant Professor Elena Chachko provides analysis of President Trump’s executive orders imposing tariffs and eliminating the de minimus exception for products from China.
Year in Review: The Stories That Made 2024 Memorable and Meaningful for UC Berkeley Law
From a Supreme Court justice’s visit and an innovative leadership initiative to impactful pro bono work and influential AI guidance, the school’s commitment to excellence, community, and public mission was on full display.
‘Voices Carry’ Podcast: Can Emergency Powers Be Leveraged to Create Change Beyond a Crisis?
Professors Katerina Linos and Elena Chachko outline the arguments in their new article, “Emergency Powers for Good.”
How Four Posts on Instagram Destroyed Her Life
Professor Elena Chachko weighs in on Israel’s 2002 law criminalizing incitement to terrorism.
High Court Flexes Muscle To Limit Administrative State
Professor Elena Chachko weighs in on the Supreme Court’s recent administrative law cases.
From Crypto to the Meaning of Truth, New Courses Build Knowledge Across a Broad Spectrum
More than 20 new classes are just part of a record number of courses offered this spring, giving students a rich range of choices.
Greatest Hits: A Dozen Stories From 2023 That Reflect Berkeley Law’s Impact
From helping to write a tribe’s constitution to providing free training worldwide on digital investigations of human rights violations to propelling crypto industry reform, the school had quite a year.
Ukraine and the Resilience of International Law with Katerina Linos and Elena Chachko
Professors Katerina Linos and Elena Chachko, co-editors of the AJIL Unbound symposium on Ukraine and International Law, discuss the contributions to the symposium and make the case that despite the horrific violence in Ukraine international law has fared better, and appears more resilient, than many might think.
Russia is testing the West’s favorite weapon
Elena Chachko, Fellow at Miller Institute, says that sanctions allow you to feel like you’re taking action, but it “doesn’t necessarily accomplish what you want to accomplish in practical terms”