Dr Mona Paulsen

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 policies, the scope and breadth of security exceptions, the intersection of trade and national security interests, and the law, politics, and history of the multilateral trading, financial, and investment law systems. Ongoing research examines how trade rules and frameworks can help address real-world challenges, particularly those related to economic security risk management, selective discrimination, trade diversification, and legal predictability and stability amid extreme uncertainty and technology-driven change.

Prior to joining the LSE, Mona was a 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 at 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, admitted to the bar in Ontario (2007). She has served as both an advisor and a legal researcher in several international investment treaty disputes and trade disputes arising from subsidisation.

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.

Research Interests and Projects

Dr Paulsen’s current research project is a book examining the ordering and negotiation of international trade relations within the League of Nations from 1918 to 1946, with a focus on dynamic norm-making aimed at fostering formative multilateral rules for open, equitable, predictable, and non-discriminatory international commerce. Through this project, she will advance understanding of the historical roots of the most-favoured-nation principle as a foundational norm of the multilateral trading system.

In addition to her archival research, Dr Paulsen draws on history to offer fresh perspectives on contemporary economic challenges. She examines economic security interventions, such as export controls, investment screening, subsidies, safeguards, and other measures to manage strategic dependencies and protect supply chains. A current project is developing economic security quadrants, which offer governments a framework for pursuing economic security objectives without sacrificing mutual gains from trade. Her work seeks to provide legal frameworks that enable governments to coordinate and cooperate on trade-offs that undermine the benefits of trade, whether in the supply of essential military equipment, responsible restocking, or responses to global crises.

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).

Publications

Teaching

LL278 Public International Law

LL4AV International Economic Law and Development

LL4B1 International Trade Law

LL4E7 International Investment Law and Arbitration

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE AND EDITORIAL BOARDS

• LSE Phelan United States Centre, Affiliate Faculty
• Professional Service and Editorial Boards: World Trade Review, Journal of International Economic Law
• Co-Chair, International Economic Law & Policy Working Paper Group

ORAL EVIDENCE

• Oral Evidence, House of Lords’ International Agreements Committee, 21 April 2026.
• Oral Testimony, Public Hearing of the Committee on International Trade (INTA), Trade Policy and Strategic Autonomy, European Parliament, 2 December 2025.
• Oral Testimony, Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy in Session, House of Lords, 26 February 2024.

SELECT PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS

• Chair, Trade and Public Policy (TaPP) 2026 Annual Conference, Plenary Session on Weaponised Trade, 5 June 2026.
• Speaker, RAND Workshop: Europe Economic Security and Resilience Initiative, 30 April 2026.
• Speaker, UK Trade Policy Forum, Weaponizing Interdependence: Trade & Foreign Policy, 24 February 2026.
• Lecture, OECD Trade Seminar, WTO Challenges and Economic Security, 21 January 2026.
• Chair, Weaponised Trade Plenary Panel, TaPP Annual Conference, 5 June 2026.
• Speaker, CAF-LSE Capacity Building Programme, Strategic Foreign Policy and Regional Cooperation in a Changing Global Order, Roundtable discussant, LSE IDEAS, 6-8 October 2025.
• Discussant, Trade and Public Policy (TaPP) Working on WTO reform, 5 December 2025.
• Speaker, Trade and Security, African-Caribbean-Pacific Group Geneva Retreat on WTO Reform, 22 September 2025.
• Chair and Speaker, Revitalising the Multilateral Trading System, Wilton Park, 1-3 October 2025.
• World Trade Organization, 2025 Public Forum, 17-18 September 2025.
  • Convenor and Speaker, Ask the Experts: Tariffs!;
  • Convenor and Speaker, Ask the Experts: Critical Minerals!
  • Speaker: The Multilateral Trading System under threat: actions and reactions
• Speaker, German Marshall Fund, Transatlantic Relations in a Time of Tariffs, A Fork in the Road for the Postwar Economic Partnerships, 18 February 2025.
• Chair, UK Trade Policy Forum 2025, The role of China in the global trade order, 27 February 2025.
• Speaker, UK-Japan Partnership roundtable, concerning a strategy for future UK-Japan Security Partnership, Wilton Park, 12-13 December 2024.
• Speaker, Borderlex Academy to Brussels officials and Think Tanks, WTO rules concerning safeguards and security, 20 November 2024.
• Trade Faculty Masterclass to the UK Department of Business & Trade on The Past, Present, and Potential of Economic Security, 5 October 2023.
• Speaker, Revitalising the Multilateral Trading System, Wilton Park, 17-19 April 2023.
• UKTPO 6th Annual Conference, Panel on Supply Chains, Speaking to Economic Security, 6 December 6, 2023.
• Speaker, Chatham House, Expert Roundtable Discussion on Economic Security, 15 September 2023.
• Speaker, Trade and Public Policy: Inaugural Trade Conference, University of Oxford, 30 June 2023.
• Speaker, VT Colloquium Series (UFRGS/FGV – Brazil), Economic Security, 15 June 2023.
• Plenary Speaker, Rethinking WTO Dispute Settlement, University of Ottawa, 24 May 2023.
• Speaker, Trade Security, IRSEM, L’Ecole Militaire, 8 November 2022.
• Multilateral Trade Day, UK Department for International Trade, Session 1 ‘From the GATT to the Present Day: Multilateral Trade and Geopolitics’ Panelist, 2 November 2022.
• Keynote, The Stockholm Oxford Law Symposium, University of Oxford, 8–9 September 2022.
• Trade Faculty Masterclass on the intersection of trade and national security for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), 25, November 2021.

BLOGS AND SHORT PUBLICATIONS

*All short essays and posts on WorldTradeLaw.Net are found at https://ielp.worldtradelaw.net/author/mona-paulsen/

• A law of many meanings: exchange actions under the GATT and IMF, WorldTradeLaw.net, 25 June 2026.
• A US-China Deal? What do we know on Paper, 15 May 2026, Substack.
• First Thoughts on the EU-US MOU on a Strategic Partnership, 28 April 2026, Substack.
• What happens to all the frameworks, deals, and agreements negotiated by USTR since April 2, 2025?, WorldTradelaw.net, 22 February 2026.
• Is this the end of MFN as we know it? The EU Submission on WTO Reform and the Meaning of Development, WorldTradelaw.net, 23 January 2026.
• Is Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act a Fall-Back Option for Trump to Impose Tariffs?, WorldTradelaw.net, 7 November 2025.
• Bound Rates and the Stakes of the Cambodian Trade Deal, WorldTradelaw.net, 31 October 2025.
• International law aspects of the U.S.-Australia critical mineral and rare earth deal, WorldTradelaw.net, 24 October 2025.
• Have the Japanese turned investment lemons into investment project lemonade?, WorldTradelaw.net, 11 September 2025.
• What Trump's Trade Representative Got Wrong, WorldTradelaw.net, 12 August 2025.
• How the US’ trading partners should respond to Trump’s coercive strategy of “tarrification”, LSE Blogs, 4 February 2025.
• Collective Economic Security, WorldTradelaw.net, 3 April 2024.
• Security Exceptions, Redux, WorldTradelaw.net, 11 November 2024.
• Risky Futures: Indonesia’s Nickel and EV Production, WorldTradelaw.net, 5 November 2024.
• Designing an Economic Security Safeguard Mechanism To Reform the WTO Security Exception, Worldtradelaw.net, 17 September 2024.
• Overcapacity and future discussions in the SCM Committee, WorldTradelaw.net, 25 April 2024.
• Managing Risks as a GATT Exception under Article XX(j), WorldTradelaw.net, 28 January, 2024.
• ‘The thin line between “consistent with” GATT Article XXI and “pursuant to” GATT Article XXI,’ WorldTradeLaw.Net, 17 August 2023.
• ‘Security of Steel Capacity – and the Persistence of Trade Security Exceptionalism’ Worldtradelaw.net, 6 June 2023.
• ‘Negotiating After a Loss – ADR and the US Steel Tariffs’ WorldTradeLaw.Net, 10 May 2023.
• ‘The Curious Case of US Self-Judging, Part 2’ WorldTradelLaw.net, 30 January 2023.
• ‘If I were an Appellate Body, Part 1’ WorldTradelLaw.net, 6 January 2023.
• ‘Will the US bypass the WTO in its pursuit of a new status quo on trade security?’ LSE US Phelan Centre, 14 December 2022.
• ‘On Friend-shoring,’ WorldTradelLaw.net, 21 April 2022.
• ‘How could China Respond to Recent US Export Controls?’ WorldTradelLaw.net, Oct. 17, 2022.
• ‘Characterizing War in a Trade Context,’ Opinio Juris 10 March 2022
• ‘The Beginning, End, and Imminence of Invoking Essential Security at the WTO’ Worldtradelaw.net 24 July 2021.
• ‘Thinking Creatively and Learning from COVID-19: How the WTO can Maintain Open Trade on Critical Supplies’ Opinio Juris. 2 April 2020.

POLICY, EDITORIALS AND PODCASTS

• Letter, Trade Rules Force States to Think Beyond Borders, The Financial Times, 12 June 2026.
• WTO Quick Win: Members Urgently Require Institutions For Economic Security Risk Management And WTO Reforms For Security Safeguard Measures, in Ten Quick Wins for Re-globalization and Resilience in Trade (TradeExperettes ed., Sept. 2024).
• Trade ‘Splaining, Episode 83, Trade, National Security & 2026, January 27, 2026.
• TradeBites, The Multilateral Trading System under threat: actions and reactions, September 24, 2025.
• Geoeconomic Competition, Economic Security is not an Exception, July 15, 2024.
• Trade ‘Splaining, Episode 68, Trade, National Security, and the WTO Walk Into a Bar, September 23, 2024.
• Trade Talks, Episode 175. The dreaded WTO ruling on Trump’s National Security Tariffs
• Trade Talks, Episode 81. National Security and Trade – The Fear of Imitation.