Dr Leonelli’s current research projects lie at the intersection of trade and climate change law, with a particular focus on the path towards net-zero and new forms of environmental unilateralism and plurilateralism. Her latest publications provide a conceptually informed insight into trade-related measures that are designed to produce specific environmental effects, including anti-deforestation standards, carbon border measures, climate clubs, and Environmental Chapters in Free Trade Agreements. Her research has also uncovered the environmental pitfalls of inward-looking national security-centred approaches, illustrating how attempts to reshore supply chains in key net-zero sectors are disrupting national and transnational decarbonisation efforts. In the past years, she has published extensively on US and EU risk regulation, governance of biotechnologies, chemicals and pesticides, and access to justice in environmental and public health matters.

Transnational narratives and regulation of GMO risks (Hart Publishing, 2021)

This book provides an innovative insight into the regulatory conundrum of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), deploying transnational legal analysis as a methodological framework to explore the most controversial area of risk governance. The book deconstructs hegemonic and counter-hegemonic transnational narratives on the governance of GMO risks, cutting across US law, EU law, the WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, and hybrid standard-setting regimes. Should uncertain risks be run unless adverse effects have been conclusively established, and should regulators only act where this is cost-benefit effective? Should risk managers make a convincing case that a product or process is safe enough for the relevant uncertain risks to be socially acceptable? How can intractable transnational regulatory conflicts be solved?

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• 'Critical raw materials, the net-zero transition and the 'securitisation' of the trade and climate change nexus: Pinpointing environmental risks and charting a new path for transnational decarbonisation' (2024) World Trade Review; working paper available here
• 'Retooling the Regulation of Net-Zero Subsidies: Lessons from the Us Inflation Reduction Act' (with Francesco Clora) (2024) Journal of International Economic Law
• 'A fresh look at the Aim-and-Effects debate: EU – Palm Oil and the centrality of the Chapeau of Article XX GATT' (2023) Trade, Law and Development
• 'Environmental unilateralism and the Chapeau of Article XX GATT: the ‘Line of Equilibrium’ and the question of ‘Differently Situated’ countries'  (2023) Journal of World Trade 57 (5) 709–730
• 'Anti-deforestation npr-PPMs and carbon border measures: thinking about the chapeau of article XX GATT in times of climate crisis' (2023) Journal of International Economic Law
• 'The long and winding road towards the creation of climate clubs: transatlantic negotiations, potential regulatory models and challenges ahead' (2023) Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law
• 'The Glyphosate saga continues: ‘Dissenting’ member states and the European way forward' (2023) Transnational Environmental Law 12 (1) 200-224
• 'Export rebates and the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism: WTO law and environmental objections' (2022) Journal of World Trade 46 (6) 963-984
• 'Transatlantic divergencies in the regulation of uncertain risks: co-production, normative frames and ideal evidence-based and socially acceptable risk approaches' (2022) German Law Journal 23 (5) 769-799
• 'Carbon border measures, environmental effectiveness and WTO law compatibility: is there a way forward for the steel and aluminium climate club?' (2022) World Trade Review 21 (5) 619-632
• 'Practical obstacles and structural legal constraints in the adoption of ‘defensive’ policies: comparing the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and the US Proposal for a Border Carbon Adjustment' (2022) Legal Studies 42 (4) 696-714  
• 'Access to the EU courts in environmental and public health cases and the reform of the Aarhus Regulation: systemic vision, pragmatism, and a happy ending' (2021) Yearbook of European Law 40, 230-264
• 'Balancing public health and environmental protection and economic stakes? Bayer CropScience and the court’s defence of the EU Socially Acceptable Risk Approach' (2021) Common Market Law Review 58 (6),1845-1874
• 'From extra-territorial leverage and transnational environmental protection to distortions of competition: the level playing field in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement' (2021) Journal of Environmental Law 33 (3) 611-637
• 'Judicial review of compliance with the precautionary principle from Paraquat to Blaise: “Quantitative Thresholds,” risk assessment, and the gap between regulation and regulatory implementation' (2021) German Law Journal 22 (2) 184-215
• 'Acknowledging the centrality of the precautionary principle in judicial review of EU risk regulation: why it matters' (2020) Common Market Law Review 57 (6) 1773-1818
• 'CETA and the external autonomy of The EU legal order: risk regulation as a test' (2020) Legal Issues of Economic Integration 47 (1) 43-70
• 'A threefold blow to environmental public interest litigation' (2020) European Law Review 45 (3) 324-347
• 'GMO authorisations and The Aarhus Regulation: paving the way for precautionary GMO governance?' (2019) Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 26 (4) 505-523
• 'The glyphosate saga and the fading democratic legitimacy of European Union risk regulation' (2018) Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 25 (5) 582-606
• 'The fine line between procedural and substantive review in cases involving complex technical-scientific evaluations: Bilbaína'(2018)Common Market Law Review 55 (4) 1217-1250
• 'GMO risks, food security, climate change and the entrenchment of Neo-Liberal legal narratives'Transnational Legal Theory 9 (3-4) 302-315

• 'The Post-Modern normative anxiety of Transnational Legal Studies' in Zumbansen, P. (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Transnational Law (Oxford University Press, 2021) 
• 'The perfect storm: GMO governance and The EU technocratic turn' in Eliantonio, M. and Peeters, M. (eds.) Research Handbook on EU Environmental Law (Edward Elgar, 2020)
• 'GMO risks, food security, climate change and the entrenchment of Neo-Liberal legal narratives' in Webster, E. and Gupta, A. and Ambros, R. (eds.) Transnational Food Security (Routledge, 2020)

Elsevier Prize for Outstanding Doctoral Work, year 2018

Associate Fellow, LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment

Member, Trade and Public Policy (TaPP) Network (Environment, Food and Agriculture, Health and Impact Assessment policy areas)

Member, Society of Legal Scholars

Fellow, Advance HE

(2024) Submission to the House of Commons Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, Net Zero and Trade Inquiry. House of Commons Energy Security and Net Zero Committee 

(2024) Consultation: introduction of a UK carbon border adjustment mechanism from January 2027 (Department for Energy Security & Net-Zero; HM Treasury). Department for Energy Security & Net-Zero; HM Treasury

(2024) Submission to the House of Commons Business and Trade Committee, Industrial Policy Inquiry. House of Commons Business and Trade Committee

(2023) Submission of Supplementary Evidence to the House of Lords International Agreements Committee, CPTPP Accession Inquiry. House of Lords International Agreements Committee

(2023) Oral evidence session, House of Lords International Agreements Committee, CPTPP Accession Inquiry. You can watch the video of the oral evidence session here.

(2023) Submission to the House of Lords International Agreements Committee, CPTPP Accession Inquiry. House of Lords International Agreements Committee

(2023) Consultation: addressing carbon leakage risk to support decarbonisation (Department for Energy Security & Net-Zero; HM Treasury). Department for Energy Security & Net-Zero; HM Treasury

(2023) Submission to the House of Commons International Trade Committee, CPTPP Accession Inquiry. House of Commons International Trade Committee

(2022) After Elmau: input to the policy debate on climate clubs. Social Science Research Network

(2022) Border tax adjustments and the WTO Law compatibility of ETS/CBAM export rebates: Aut Simul Stabunt, Aut Simul Cadent. SSRN: Elsevier.

(2022) Guest post: full carbon pricing, average carbon intensity and the Global Steel and Aluminium Arrangement: in conversation with Bixuan Wu and Aaron Cosbey. International Economic Law and Policy Blog

(2022) Submission to the House of Commons International Trade Committee, Trade and the Environment Inquiry. London, UK: House of Commons International Trade Committee

(2022) Submission to the House of Lords International Agreements Committee, UK – Australia Trade Negotiations. London, UK: House of Lords International Agreements Committee

LL232 European Union Law

LL4A6 Climate Change and International Law

LL4AT Regulation: Strategies and Enforcement