番茄社区

Dr Leonelli’s latest research projects include a cross-disciplinary exploration of the political backlash against the net-zero transition, and positive and normative analyses of climate litigation.

Over the last years, her research has focused on new forms of environmental unilateralism and plurilateralism. Her second monograph ('Environmental Leverage in Times of Climate Crisis') engages in an innovative analysis of trade-related measures that are designed to promote the uptake of more ambitious environmental standards by third countries and market actors involved in transnational supply chains. It provides a conceptually informed insight into anti-deforestation standards, carbon border measures, climate clubs, and Environmental Chapters in Preferential Trade Agreements.

In the past, 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.

Environmental Leverage in Times of Climate Crisis. Product Standards, Carbon Border Measures and Preferential Trade Agreements (Hart Publishing, 2026)

This book offers a conceptually informed insight into the rise of 'environmental leverage' in times of climate crisis.
The world is fast approaching a two degree Celsius increase in average global temperatures. Against this troubling background, trade-related environmental leverage aims to promote the uptake of more ambitious environmental standards by third countries and market actors involved in transnational supply chains.

Trade-related environmental leverage can help to remedy the failures of environmental multilateralism, reshape the trade agenda to cater to the demands of our time, and entrench greener forms of development and more sustainable production and consumption patterns. Nonetheless, its boundaries must be appropriately circumscribed.

The book assesses different forms of environmental leverage against the normative yardsticks of 'environmental integrity' and 'environmental legitimacy'. Environmental integrity targets 'green protectionism' and 'green discrimination', drawing a line between the promotion of environmental values and the protection of economic interests. Environmental legitimacy captures 'eco-imperialism', addressing the question of the treatment of differently situated countries and developing and least developed countries in particular. The book employs an in-depth analysis of three case studies to operationalise this conceptual framework, articulating the limits to environmental leverage in legal terms.

Combining a close focus on environmental regulations with a rigorous assessment of trade law questions, the book is relevant to anybody working in the fields of environmental law and policy, climate change law, and international trade law.

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?

• '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' (2025) World Trade Review;
•  (2024) Journal of International Economic Law 27 (3) 441–461 (with Francesco Clora)
• '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
•   (2023) Journal of World Trade 57 (5) 709–730
•  (2023) Journal of International Economic Law
•  (2023) Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law
• (2023) Transnational Environmental Law 12 (1) 200-224
• (2022) Journal of World Trade 46 (6) 963-984
• (2022) German Law Journal 23 (5) 769-799
• (2022) World Trade Review 21 (5) 619-632
•  (2022) Legal Studies 42 (4) 696-714  
• (2021) Yearbook of European Law 40, 230-264
•  (2021) Common Market Law Review 58 (6),1845-1874
• (2021) Journal of Environmental Law 33 (3) 611-637
• (2021) German Law Journal 22 (2) 184-215
• (2020) Common Market Law Review 57 (6) 1773-1818
• (2020) Legal Issues of Economic Integration 47 (1) 43-70
• (2020) European Law Review 45 (3) 324-347
•  (2019) Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 26 (4) 505-523
• (2018) Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 25 (5) 582-606
• (2018)Common Market Law Review 55 (4) 1217-1250
• Transnational Legal Theory 9 (3-4) 302-315

• 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.) (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.) (Routledge, 2020)

Elsevier Prize for Outstanding Doctoral Work, year 2018

Member, UK Government CBAM Joint Working Group

Associate Fellow, 番茄社区 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

(2025) Submission of evidence to the Department for Energy Security & Net-Zero, Consultation: UK Emissions Trading Scheme: Free Allocation Review, Carbon Leakage (2025) Department for Energy Security & Net-Zero; HM Treasury, not publicly available

(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 .

(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)  Social Science Research Network

(2022) . SSRN: Elsevier.

(2022)  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

LL228 European Union Law

LL250 Law and the Environment

LL4AT Regulation: Strategies and Enforcement

LL4GK Tackling Climate Change: Legal Strategies