I am Professor of International Law in the Faculty of Law, Lund University, and, from 1 September 2025 and onwards, a Distinguished Researcher in the Faculty of Law, University of A Coruña. (My Dean in Lund has approved an 80 % absence of leave.) I have a recognized standing in the international law research community and close contacts with colleagues at several universities, organisations and institutions throughout the world. I am invited to present my research by organizers of high-profile academic conferences, by important law schools (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge, Leiden and Maastricht), and by important international organisations and institutions (e.g. OSCE, the Nordic Tax Research Council, and the Aaland Islands Peace Institute). I advise law firms, including Vinge, Lindahl and Westerberg, and their international partners, in complex issues such as the immunity of states against enforcement measures affecting their property. Similarly, I advise members of parliament for Sweden, Latvia and the Aaland Islands, as well as journalists (including Swedish journalist and photographer Henrik Ewertsson, who was prosecuted in Swedish courts for filming at the wreck of M/S Estonia).

My work is published in prestigious international law journals and by prominent publishing houses. It is cited in leading international law textbooks, commentaries and encyclopedias, including: Brownlie’s Principles of Public International Law, by James Crawford (OUP, 2019); the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, 2012); the OUP Commentary to the 1969 and 1986 Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties, eds. Corten & Klein (2011); and the Springer Commentary on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, eds. Dörr & Schmalenbach (2018). It has been considered repeatedly by the UN International Law Commission, in connection with its work on: Peremptory Norms of General International Law (Jus Cogens); Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice in Relation to the Interpretation of Treaties; Treaties Over Time; Reservations to Treaties; and Fragmentation of International Law. Hence, my research has a direct impact, not only on the research and practice of international law, but also on its codification and progressive development.[1]

My publications include five monographs – the four in English are International Law and the Significance of Disciplinary Boundaries. Special Regimes as Communities of Practice, with Eric De Brabandere (CUP, 2024, forthcoming), The International Legal System as a System of Knowledge (EEP, 2022), Understanding Jus Cogens in International Law and International Legal Discourse (EEP, 2020), and On the Interpretation of Treaties (Springer, 2007) – two textbooks (both of which are available in updated third editions); five co-edited volumes; and a total of 46 articles in high-ranking peer-reviewed international journals, including some of the most prestigious such as: European Journal of International Law (twice), Leiden Journal of International Law, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, and Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht (four times).

The emphasis of my work is on legal analysis and not merely legal description. I deal largely with issues that international lawyers and scholars know to be both perplexing and fundamental. Often, my research challenges traditional belief or prompts new approaches to much-debated issues. In describing my researcher’s profile, I have taken the habit of referring to myself as a “specialized generalist”, which I believe is a term with positive connotations. As I am convinced, the more specialized and diversified international law, the more urgent the need for a generalist’s knowledge and an overall perspective on the law. This is a principle that permeates all of my work. My research – throughout directed at the understanding of the systemic fabric of international law, rather than its many technical details – has engaged with a great number of areas of international law. It has examined issues arising from generally occurring phenomena such as normative conflict, legal hierarchy, legal interpretation, the application of international law over time, legal principles, legal concepts and conceptual terms, good faith, abuse of rights, proportionality, the exercise of discretion, the concept of a special regime, and the concept of an international legal system. I have an analytical mind and a readiness to seek new knowledge at the overlap of different academic disciplines. For the analysis of legal phenomena, thus, I have found it extremely enriching to draw upon research in other disciplines than law, such as theories of language (especially pragmatics), educational theory (Etienne Wenger’s theory of communities of practice), sociology (Habermas’ theory of communicative action), and epistemology. This approach has been widely appreciated. Time and again, research outcomes have been commended by reviewers for showing an “impressive breadth of knowledge”; they have been appreciated for their “theoretical depth” and “analytical refinement”; they have been referred to as “innovative” and “ground-breaking”.

My research has been funded by significant research grants, amounting to a total of SEK 34 million – or approximately SEK 1.4 million per year of employment. These grants have been awarded by, among others, the Spanish Government, the Swedish Research Council (three times), the Ragnar Söderberg Foundation, the Torsten Söderberg Foundation, the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, and the Institute for Legal Research. They have enabled me to work closely, in particular projects, with a great number of other colleagues in Sweden and abroad, as further defined by the below examples:

• “The Exercise of Discretion in International Law and the Legitimacy of the Legal Decision in an In-creasingly Specialized International Legal System”, 2025-2029, principal investigator, to be eligible for this grant, you have to be “among the 10% of the most outstanding researchers in your area of ​​specialization at a global level”, the grant will allow me to recruit another two researchers, the Spanish Government, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Programa ATRAE, EUR 1,000,000.
• “The International Legal System as a System of Knowledge”, 2020-2022, principal investigator, with Prof Eric De Brabandere (Leiden), and Associate Profs Leena Grover (Tilburg), Astrid Kjeldgaard Pedersen (Copenhagen), and Eduardo Gill-Pedro (Lund), the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and the Institute for Legal Research, SEK 1,531,000.
• “What’s so Special About the Special Regimes?”, 2018-2022, principal investigator, with Prof Eric De Brabandere (Leiden) and Assistant Prof Anna Nilsson, the Swedish Research Council, SEK 6,525,000.
• “Due Diligence in international law and corporate social responsibility (CSR)”, 2014-2017, principal investigator, with Associate Prof Radu Mares, the Swedish Research Council, SEK 2,007,000.
• “Proportionality in the Application of International Law: In Search of Coherence”, 2012-2017, principal investigator, with Prof Xavier Groussot, and Post-doc fellows Valentin Jeutner, Eduardo Gill-Pedro and Anna Nilsson, the Ragnar Söderberg Foundation, SEK 4,310,000.
• ”Understanding Jus Cogens in International Law and International Legal Discourse”, 2007-2011, principal investigator, with Prof Gregor Noll, the Swedish Research Council, SEK 2,610,000.

I am currently being considered by the ERC for an Advanced Grant; for the second year in a row, my application was retained for the second round of the review process – a stage reached by only some 25 % of submitted proposals.

I have twice been awarded research grants by my Faculty, allowing me to spend, each time, six months conducting research on a full-time basis. These grants do not exist anymore, but from 2014 to 2019, they were awarded to researchers, “who have a high level of research activity, contribute to the creation and development of research groups, actively and successfully seek funds for themselves and others, contribute to the creation and development of international research collaborations, work interdisciplinary, and publish their research results both on Swedish and English, in prestigious journals and with top-ranked publishing houses”. 

I was awarded, in 2017, the Nordic Tax Research Council Article Prize for best article published in the 2016 edition of top-ranked Nordic Tax Journal. Members of the jury expressed appreciation of my way of approach to legal research: “By his cross-disciplinary study, replicating and scientifically testing Swedish tax scholars’ conception of international law’s influence on tax treaty interpretation, Linderfalk has greatly contributed to a constructive and important academic discussion on the key area of tax treaty law.”

I was the Editor-in-Chief of the leading Scandinavian international law journal, the Nordic Journal of International Law (2011-2019); a member and Vice chair of the Board of Research at my Faculty (2012-2017); a member of the Academic Appointment Committee at the Faculty (2018-2020); the Chair of the Nomination Committee at my Faculty (2020-2023); and a member of the Faculty Board (2021-2023). In 2016, I chaired the External Advisory Board appointed by the Faculty of Law at Copenhagen University to assess an application to establish at that Faculty a Centre for International Law, Conflict and Crisis; other members of the Board were Professors Christine Gray (Cambridge) and Geir Ulfstein (Oslo).

[1] The ILC is a subsidiary organ of the UN General Assembly. According to its Statute, it “shall have for its object the promotion of the progressive development of international law and its codification” (Art 1).