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 draws upon rigorous archival research to afford a historical context to contemporary concerns. She is completing a book (with Oxford University Press) that will reconceptualise normative debates concerning the functions and limits of the most-favoured-nation principle for multilateral trade governance during the interwar period. Her forthcoming article in the Yale Journal of International Law (2025) reconstructs U.S. planning for multilateral institutions designed to secure the global economy, with two case studies from 1947 to 1953 to demonstrate how U.S. trade policy never separated economics and security. Her 2020 article, Trade Multilateralism and U.S. National Security: The Making of the GATT Security Exceptions, has been cited by a WTO dispute settlement panel report for the dispute US — Origin Marking (Hong Kong, China).

Trade and security; economic security strategies; safeguards and industrial policies; risk regulation; law and politics of the World Trade Organization; sustainable development; alternate norms of most-favoured-nation.

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).