About me

Dr Mona Paulsen is an Assistant Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science Law School. An expert in international economic law, Dr Paulsen researches and writes on economic security, international trade and investment law, and the law and politics of the World Trade Organization (WTO). She is regularly called upon to speak about international trade law, industrial policies, the intersection of trade and national security, and WTO reform. She holds a PhD in International Economic Law from The Dickson Poon School of Law, KCL and an LLM in International Law from The George Washington University School of Law.

Dr Paulsen contributes to the United Kingdom’s trade policies, engaging with the Department of Business & Trade and the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office. Dr Paulsen gave evidence to the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy in February 2024 relating to the UK’s economic security, with substantive questions about international coordination considering trade and energy security, potential de-risking strategies, and the security of resources needed for UK economic development. She offers government consultations upon request.

She has presented her work at the WTO, the OECD, the UK Trade Policy Forum, the American Society of International Law, The Economist’s Global Trade Week, various academic institutions, and several seminars convened by the UK-based Trade and Public Policy (TaPP) Network. She has spoken in various podcasts, including the Peterson Institute for International Economics’ Trade Talks!, Geoeconomics, and TradeSplainin’. Dr. Paulsen serves on the editorial board for the World Trade Review. She regularly contributes to WorldTradeLaw.net’s International Economic Law & Policy blog. She co-convenes the London-based International Economic Law & Politics working group (partnered with the Journal of International Economic Law) and is a founding TaPP network member.

Prior to joining the LSE, Mona was Teaching Fellow for the International Economic Law, Business, and Policy LL.M. Program at Stanford Law School. Before that, she was an Emile Noël Fellow at the Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law & Justice, New York University. She has been a visiting lecturer in the law departments at the University of California (Davis) and King’s College London. Mona is a qualified Canadian lawyer and admitted to the bar in Ontario (2007). She has been involved as both an advisor and legal researcher in several international investment treaty disputes and trade disputes arising from subsidisation.

Administrative support: Law.Reception@lse.ac.uk

Dr Paulsen researches and teaches in the fields of international trade and investment law, international development, international political economy, and economic security. Her new article: Let’s Agree to Disagree: A Strategy for Trade Security is forthcoming in the Journal of International Economic Law. This article is the start of a broader research agenda focused on institutional improvements for WTO members to deliberate on the implications of the intersection between trade and security interests. Her forthcoming book with Oxford University Press charts the concept-building of international investment law in the early twentieth century and shows how this history reveals the unsettled foundations around economic development, security, and corporate power that continue to exist in tension today.

Legal research into the geopolitics of trade and economic governance, drawing from the disciplines of history and political economy; trade security; tech development; the past, present, and future of the global economy and international economic governance.

Editorial Board, World Trade Review

Co-Chair, International Economic Law & Policy Seminar Series

Contributor, International Economic Law & Policy Blog

Member, Society of International Economic Law

Member, American Society of International Law

Member, European Society of International Law

Member, Canadian Council of International Law

Speaker, Law of Global Economic Statecraft, October 24, 2022, University of Georgia.
Plenary speaker, World Trade Forum, 23 September 2022, University of Bern.
Keynote, The Stockholm Oxford Law Symposium, 8-9 September 2022 (University of Oxford).