Alessandra Arcuri (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Wednesday 18 March 2026, 11.00 – 16.30, UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles
Cycle Interdisciplinarités en droit
Language: English
Alessandra Arcuri is Full Professor of International Economic Law at the Department of Law and Markets, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is a member of the Erasmus Initiative on Inclusive Prosperity. Her research and teaching focus on international economic law, sustainability, environmental law, global technocracy and democracy. She has also been invited to teach in various institutions worldwide including Lund University, Bocconi University, the African Universities in Lomè, Togo, Luiss University, and University of Siena. In addition to her academic research and teaching, Arcuri engages with non-academic audiences, by authoring commissioned reports and briefing institutional actors, including the Dutch Parliament, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Commission and NGOs.
During this seminar, Alessandra Arcuri will present her work on international investment law and the fossil fuel economy. She will use her research to reflect together on some general questions, including: how does the law enable/hinder a just transition? Which methodologies help to identify relations of domination? How should lawyers engage with clients, such as fossil fuel corporations, whose main business is damaging the planet? And what is the role of academic scholars in studying these issues?
Programme
11.00 – 12.00: Interview
Moderated by Claire Debucquois
12.00 – 13.00: Lunch
13.00 – 14.30: Presentation of international investment law and the fossil fuel economy
Alessandra Arcuri will discuss insights from her article ‘On how the ECT fuels the fossil fuel economy: Rockhopper v Italy as a case study’ [2023] 7(1): 3. Europe and the World: A law review and bridge these with her more recent work. The central thesis of this article is that the Energy Charter Treaty (a sectoral investment agreement on energy) can be deployed to expand the rights of the fossil fuel industry and counter the democratic forces that animate the ecological transition. More specifically, the article shows the entanglement between the suppression of ecological democracy and the expansion of fossil rights.
We will take the Rockhopper v Italy arbitration proceedings as an opportunity to reflect on morality and lawyering. In times of democratic crises and socio-ecological upheavals, how should lawyers support clients whose business can compress democracy and/or severely damage the planet? We will also reflect on the role of academic scholars in engaging with socially relevant debate. Should academics stay ‘neutral’ and shy away from public debates or should they intervene and engage with policymakers?
14.30 – 15.00: Coffee Break
15.00 – 16.30: Discussion: Boundary-Work and Dynamics of Exclusion by Law
On the basis of the article referenced below, participants are invited to prepare a short (max. 5 min) opening statement to explain how/whether they identify the construction of ideational boundary (or other techiniques of exclusion) in their research. In particular, they should consider whether/how they critique legal doctrines and institutions, in ways that reveal relations of domination. Are you considering how the law treats marginalized subjects? Are you looking at how, in your legal domain, the law includes/excludes? What are plausible alternative legal imaginaries that could flow from your critique? The objective is to discuss the difficulties and opportunities of engaging with this type of questions.
Reference: Arcuri Alessandra, ‘Boundary-Work and Dynamics of Exclusion by Law: International Investment Law as a Case Study’, in Bartl and Lawrence (eds), The Politics of European Legal Research: Behind the Method (Edward Elgar, 2022). (If pressed for time, you can read only the Introduction, Section 2 and conclusion: pp. 60-66 and 75-76.)