Dr Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli is a Reader in Environmental Law at The Dickson Poon School of Law and a member of its Centre for Climate Law & Governance. She is currently on part-time secondment at the UK Parliament, as the Thematic Research Lead for International Affairs and National Security.

Dr Duvic-Paoli is a public international lawyer, with research interests in environmental, climate and energy law. Her scholarship covers the international environmental obligations of states, the global legal implications of the clean energy transition and the role of participatory rights and citizens' assemblies in climate governance. She is the author of The Prevention Principle in International Environmental Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and the co-editor (with Veerle Heyvaert) of the Research Handbook on Transnational Environmental Law (Edward Elgar, 2020). At present, she is researching a new book entitled Reimagining Climate Legislation: Citizens’ Assemblies and the Making of Environmental Law (Cambridge University Press).

Dr Duvic-Paoli regularly consults for governments, international organisations and NGOs. She has worked closely with decision-makers and civil society in the context of e.g. international climate negotiations, the drafting of the Global Pact for the Environment, France’s climate assembly and the UK's Climate Change Risk Assessment evidence report. She also has an expanding portfolio of legal practice, including in relation to international proceedings before the International Court of Justice.

Dr Duvic-Paoli is an Editor of the journal Transnational Environmental Law, an Editorial Fellow of the Paris Institute for Advanced Study and a Fellow of the Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG). In 2020/2021, she was a Fellow at the Paris Institute for Advanced Study, as the Sorbonne University 'Major Societal Changes' Chair. She is the Project Leader of the Platform on International Energy Governance, a network of excellence that fosters the conduct of research in unexplored areas of international energy governance.

Dr Duvic-Paoli is a passionate educator of the next generation of sustainability leaders. She was short-listed twice by the Dickson Poon School of Law for a teaching excellence award (innovation in education). She regularly delivers executive education training for sustainability professionals, as well as capacity-building workshops for Global South officials.

Dr Duvic-Paoli has held visiting teaching and research positions at the Graduate Institute Geneva, the University of Geneva, ESADE Law School, the University of New South Wales, the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Rennes, FGV São Paulo and the Heidelberg Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. She also contributes to doctoral training at the Université Bordeaux-Montaigne. Before joining King’s College London in 2017, she was Philomathia Post-doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge.

Leslie-Anne holds Master’s degrees in international relations / political science from Sciences Po Paris and in public law from the University of Panthéon-Sorbonne, and a PhD (summa cum laude) in international law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

Tedx talk 

Watch Leslie-Anne’s TEDx talk on: 'Will citizens' assemblies save the planet?' (View on Youtube).

Research Interests

• Environmental law (international, transnational)
• Environmental principles and obligations
• Energy transition law and energy democratisation
• Climate citizens’ assemblies and climate legislation
• Human rights and environmental degradation
• Public international law

Teaching

• Environmental law (LLB)
• Global law of climate change (LLM)
• ESG regulation and compliance (MSc, King’s Business School)
• Public international law (LLB)

PhD Student Supervision

Dr Duvic-Paoli supervises PhD students in the field of international and transnational environmental law. Research proposals that address not only the climate crisis but also biodiversity loss, oceans protection, resource management or pollution are welcome. Supervision on subjects of general public international law with a cosmopolitan focus is also possible.

PURE profile 

For more information on Dr Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli's research and her publications, visit her research portal.