My research focuses on the intersection and implementation of international law, international economic law and international human rights law in complex contexts, such as situations of armed conflict, climate breakdown, humanitarian and health emergencies, forced migration. My work examines instances of privatization of public goods, from water utilities to humanitarian and health responses. I am interested in issues of responsibility arising in such privatized contexts and I study, more broadly, the intersection between international economic law and human rights (with a focus on international investment law and finance). My research covers the human rights impacts of international investment law; the relationship between inequality and development finance in the context of humanitarian assistance and climate action; the privatization and externalization of migration. I am the author of Investment and Human Rights in Armed Conflict: Charting an Elusive Intersection (Hart, 2019) which has been described as "compelling, innovative and insightful" and "a mandatory read to understand and master where the debate on investment and human rights should be directed". I am a founding member of The IEL Collective, of which the Faculty of Law is an institutional member. The IEL Collective was launched to provide a space for critical reflection on the complex interactions in the growing field of international economic law. It aims to explore how epistemological and methodological diversity in the discipline can contribute to the development of a more holistic landscape of scholarship on law and the governance of the global economy. 

I am also a member of the Law and Development Research Network (LDRN) and a member of the steering committee of the research hub New Frontiers in International Development Finance (NeFDeF). Within NeFDeF I am responsible for coordinating the research stream on Climate and Sustainability Finance. I am a member of the Legal Action Committee of GLAN (Global Legal Action Network) and a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, European Interdisciplinary Studies Deparment, Natolin Campus, where I co-direct with Professor Jean-Pierre Cassarino the course Cooperation on Migration Governance between the EU and its Neighbourhood. Prior to joining Lund University, I was Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham, School of Law (UK) where I also headed the Forced Migration Unit of the Human Rights Law Centre, to which I remain affiliated as a Fellow. My non-academic background includes extended deployments as a human rights field officer with the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and as a consultant for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Ongoing research projects

I am currently involved in the Just Transition research project at Lund University, Faculty of Law, which I co-direct with Dr Britta Sjöstedt. The project is funded by the Centre for European Research at Lund University and examines, from an international legal perspective, the interaction between the European Green Deal and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), focusing specifically on the financial mechanisms at the core of EU policies on climate action and the screening mechanisms of the EU Taxonomy.

I am also now concluding my Liquid Borders project which examines EU migration policies to interrogate how they contribute to the "liquidity" of the EU border, for instance through externalization and containment policies, outsourcing to private security contractors, and development finance. The project considers the implications of this border "liquidity" from different perspectives, from state responsibility for breaches of international law, to financial and investment implications, to theoretical and philosophical perspectives. Various invitations from UN Special Procedures and publications in leading international journals have resulted from this project (e.g. European Journal of International Law, German Law Journal, Business and Human Rights Journal, Les Cahiers de Tunisie). 

I have supervised to completion two PhD candidates, Emma Allen and Ruth Brittle who have both secured permanent academic positions in the UK. I currently co-supervise two PhD candidates at Lund University (Soo-hyun Lee and Anastasiya Kotova) and Sara Arapiles at the University of Nottingham (UK).