SHIELD – Study Hub for International Economic Law and Development

Study Hub for International Economic Law and Development (SHIELD) focuses on international economic law, policy-making and dispute settlement, as well as on social and economic development. SHIELD’s research encompasses the three pillars of international economic law: international trade, investment, and commercial law. It juxtaposes economic considerations with non-economic ones (energy sustainability, environmental protection, food security, cultural heritage), explores their interaction and their impact on the society and its institutions.

As an academic platform, oriented at creating research synergies, SHIELD connects scholars interested in the study of international economic law and development, as well as specialists from other, related fields (economics, computer sciences, environmental and agricultural studies).

SHIELD seeks to engage in an ongoing dialogue with domestic and international stakeholders, including legal practitioners and business community, public sector agencies and NGOs, as well as international and regional organizations.

SHIELD seeks to study current topics of international economic law, including international trade, investment and commercial relations, as well as dispute resolution mechanisms in these areas. SHIELD also acknowledges the significance of non-economic values such as public interest and sustainable development in international economic law and policy-making.  

The group focuses on studying transformations of global economic governance and on the role of Denmark and the EU in these developments. It also examines the consequences of these phenomena for the Danish society, industry and public sector institutions.

In particular, it addresses the following research topics:

• Crisis of the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Mechanism
• Reform of the investor-state dispute resolution regime – towards the Multilateral Investment Court?
• European Union as an economic actor: trade and investment initiatives, intra- and extra-EU bilateral investment agreements, the compatibility of international adjudicatory bodies (such as the Investment Court System) with EU law
• International Commercial Arbitration as private network of global institutions: challenges and prospects
• global economic players and developing countries: challenges for multilateral endeavors in the rise of protectionist economic policies
• regulation of investments in the energy sector to facilitate the Green Transition
• non-multilateral forms of international economic collaboration
• Special Economic Zones
• international economic law and protection of non-economic values (environmental protection, energy sustainability, food safety, indigenous rights, cultural and historical heritage)

• ENERGIZE sets a platform to research International Investment Law in relation to green energy transition and to propose changes to enhance environmental protection.

Conferences

• 2^nd ENERGIZE Workshop – "International Investment Law for the Green Transition: the Limits of Plurilateralism" (November 2023)
• 1^stENERGIZE Workshop – “Reform of the Energy Charter Treaty – Plans and Challenges”; DFF Project "ENERGIZE: Re-Shaping International Investment Law for the Green Transition", PI Joanna Lam (August 2022) 
• International Investment Law and Environmental Protection (October 2022)
• 'Sources of International Law and Environmental Protection in the Interpretation of Investment Treaties'(November 2021)
• Asia and Africa in Transition: Sustainability Strategy and Investments in Africa (2021)
• “EU and Asia in the Digitalized World” (2021)
• “Sustainable Development and Economic Policy-Making” (2019)

SHIELD Lecture Series

• Catharine Titi "Nationality and Representation on the International Bench" in collaboration with the European Society of International Law
• Anne van Aaken: “Future of the Multilateral Trading System”