Professor de Bres is particularly interested in questions of distributive justice in relation to international institutions and practices, such as trade, financial, and environmental regimes, that involve interstate cooperation and the exercise of authority across borders. These institutions share many of the trappings of states (e.g., legislation, sanctions, adjudication) and yet lack others (e.g., hierarchical governance, comprehensive scope, and coercive enforcement).

She teaches courses in global justice, political philosophy, and ethics. Courses most closely related to her research are Introduction to Global Justice and a seminar, Justice and International Trade. The first provides an understanding of various philosophical approaches to the ethics of international relations and applies those approaches to current global challenges; the second goes more deeply into the particular case of trade, using both work by philosophers and empirical research on the multilateral trading system.

Wellesley College Profile for Helen de Breshttp://www.wellesley.edu/philosophy/faculty/debres