Covering the main areas of international legal regulation, chiefly international finance, international trade and international investment, and encompassing theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches, our research on international economic governance offers a critical understanding of the legal aspects of international economic governance and the role of international law in the constitution and structuration of various international economic processes.

Highlights from our work in this area:

Law and the Political Economy of Hunger

This book is an inquiry into the role of law in the contemporary political economy of hunger. In the work of many international institutions, governments, and NGOs, law is represented as a solution to the persistence of hunger. This presentation is evident in the efforts to realize a human right to adequate food, as well as in the positioning of law, in the form of regulation, as a tool to protect society from ‘unruly’ markets. In her monograph, Dr Anna Chadwick draws on theoretical work from a range of disciplines to challenge accounts that portray law’s role in the context of hunger as exclusively remedial.

Markets, Constitutions and Inequality

Our staff member Dr Anna Chadwick co-leads the project “Markets, Constitutions, and Inequality” which was awarded a Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Networking Grant in August 2016. The project investigates the relationships between constitutions, economic governance, and sustainable and inclusive economic development. It launches a new research network centred on comparative study into the under-appreciated role that constitutions, as sources of both political aspirations and legal norms, play in shaping market activities and creating the conditions for sustainable and inclusive economic development. Dr Chadwick is working with a number of partners across Latin America to expand the reach of the network and to develop collective publications.