Professor Leïla Choukroune

University of Portsmouth

Leïla Choukroune is Professor of International Law and Director of the University of Portsmouth Thematic Area in Democratic Citizenship. She is in charge of the strategic leadership for interdisciplinary thematic research across five Faculties.

Her research focuses on the interactions between international trade and investment law, human rights, development studies, jurisprudence and social theory. For the past twenty years, it is applied to the Global South, in India, South Asia, China and East Africa in particular.

Professor Leïla Choukroune has published numerous scientific articles, book chapters and special issues in English, French, Spanish or Chinese and authored more than ten books, including recently, Judging the State in International Trade and Investment Law (2016), and Exploring Indian Modernities (2018), Handbook of International Investment Law and Policy (2020), Adjudicating Businesses in India, (2021), International Economic Law (2021).

She is the Editor of the Springer book series International Law and the Global South (https://www.springer.com/series/13447?detailsPage=titles-); and the Routledge Series in Human Rights, Citizenship and the Law (https://www.routledge.com/Studies-in-Citizenship- Human-Rights-and-the-Law/book-series/HRLCITIZENSHIP). She is the Editor (law) of the Journal of Interantional Trade Law and Policy (https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/jitlp). She is also Associate Editor of the Manchester Journal of International Economic Law (https://www.electronicpublications.org/catalogue.php?id=48#board) and Member of the Editorial Boards of the leading peer reviewed Journals China Perspectives and Perspectives Chinoises. She is currently working on the creation of a new Journal in International Law and Development with a Global South orientation. She regularly publishes in the global media and has given a large number of interviews about her research and its impact.

Together with Professor James Nedumpara, she is the co-Chair of the South Asia International Economic Law Network (SAIELN) a learned society, which endeavours to foster research and publication in international economic law.

She has taught all disciplines of international law to graduate and post-graduate students as well as specialized executive courses and programmes in Europe, Asia and Africa. She has also supervised and mentored a very large number of students at the master and PhD levels.

Professor Leïla Choukroune is regularly solicited as an independent expert on international economic law and business and human rights issues. She has been independent adviser to the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and a Member of the French National Books Commission (CNL).

She is Officer of “l’Ordre du mérité” (Knight of the Order of Merit – conferred by the French government).

Before joining the University of Portsmouth, she was Director of the Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities (CSH), a research unit of the CNRS based in New Delhi (India), Associate Professor at the Law Faculty of Maastricht University (Netherlands); Deputy Director of the Institute for Globalization and International Regulation (IGIR) and Director of the Advanced Master in international economic law (Maastricht University); Assistant Professor at HEC Paris, Consultant for the OECD, Lecturer at Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and Researcher at the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC) a unit of the CNRS in Hong Kong.

Professor Leïla Choukroune holds a Doctorate in international law (suma cum laude – highest honour) from the University Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne and is a qualified lawyer to the Paris Bar.
She is fluent in English, French and Spanish, speaks Chinese and German and learns Hindi.

Professor Choukroune has worked in six different higher education systems over the world and has grown an impressive professional network. She has developed unique intercultural skills to negotiate with and advise academic institutions, governments, industries and civil society.