Professor Jorge E Vinuales

Professor Jorge E. Viñuales holds the Harold Samuel Chair of Law and Environmental Policy at the University of Cambridge and is the founding Director of the Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG). He is also a Research Professor of International Law at LUISS, Rome, the Chairman of the Compliance Committee of the UNECE/WHO-Europe Protocol on Water and Health, a Member of the Institut de Droit International, a member of the arbitrator panels of ICSID and of the Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong international arbitration centres, and the former Director-General of the Latin-American Society of International Law.

Jorge has lectured widely around the world, including in Azerbaijan (Diplomatic Academy), Brazil (USP and PUC), Burundi (UNESCO Chair), China (PKU, Nanjing, Wuhan), France (College de France, EHESS, Pantheon-Assas, Sciences Po, Sorbonne), Georgia (Tbilisi), Greece (Thessaloniki), Italy (EUI, UC Milano, La Sapienza, Siena), Iran (TeIAS), Hungary (ELTE), Mexico (UAM), Norway (Oslo, ILPI), Rwanda (Kigali IAM), Spain (UAM, Rovira i Virgili), the UK (Edinburgh and Oxford), and the US (Harvard), and he regularly lectures in the UN Regional Courses (Addis Ababa, Montevideo, Santiago), the UN International Fellowship (The Hague), and the OAS courses (Rio de Janeiro).

He has published widely in his specialty areas, most recently his books The International Law of Energy (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Cassese's International Law (Oxford University Press, 2020, with P. Gaeta and S. Zappala), The UN Friendly Relations Declaration at 50: An Assessment of the Fundamental Principles of International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2020, editor), ICSID Reports, vols. 18, 19 and 20 (co-ed with M. Waibel), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Law (Oxford University Press, 2019, co-ed. with E. Lees), Experiments in International Adjudication: Historical Accounts (Cambridge University Press, 2019, co-ed. with I. de la Rasilla), The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. A Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2015), International Environmental Law (Cambridge University Press, 2015, second edition 2018, French edition 2015, Chinese edition 2021, with P.-M. Dupuy), The Foundations of International Investment Law (Oxford University Press, 2014, co-edited with Z. Douglas and J. Pauwelyn), Foreign Investment and the Environment in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2012, reprint 2015), Environmental and Energy Law: International, European and Comparative Dimensions (Edward Elgar, 3 volumes, 2017, co-edited with E. Lees) and Diplomatic and Judicial Means of Dispute Settlement (Martinus Nijhoff, 2012, co-edited with L. Boisson de Chazournes and M. G. Kohen).

His ongoing work includes one book-length study on The Architecture of Environmental Law: A Comparative Analysis (on contract with Oxford University Press) and a monographic course on Aggravated State Responsibility for the Hague Academy of International Law as well as a series of interdisciplinary papers on complexity economics, integrated modelling and sustainability policy in co-authorship with colleagues from C-EENRG and elsewhere. The latter work has been published over time in journals such as Nature Climate Change, Nature Energy, Global Environmental Change, Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, Energy Policy or Climate Policy.  

Jorge has wide experience as a practitioner, both in an advisory and a litigation context. He was associate, counsel, and of counsel with two major law firms specialised in international law for a decade. In addition to his work for the UNECE/WHO, he has served as arbitrator, counsel, co-counsel, expert and, earlier in his career, as secretary of arbitration tribunals in inter-State, investment and commercial disputes. He regularly advises governments, companies, international organisations or major NGOs on different matters of environmental law and policy, investment law, human rights, maritime delimitation and public international law at large.

A dual Swiss/Argentine national, Jorge was educated in France (Doctorat - Sciences Po, Paris), the United States (LL.M. - Harvard Law School), Switzerland (Licence and Diplôme d’études approfondies in international relations - HEI; liz jur – Universität Freiburg; Licence and Diplôme d’études approfondies in political science – Université de Genève), and Argentina (Abogado – UNICEN).

His native language is Spanish and he is fluent in English, French and Italian and has working knowledge of some other languages.

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