Markus Wagner

Professor Wagner is an internationally recognised expert in international economic law and governance, international peace and security, as well as US and Australian constitutional law. His recent scholarship has focused on various aspects of international economic law. He is leading a project titled Weaponised Trade which has seen increasing impact around the world. He is also undertaking research on international food law, including on the domestic and international regulation of cellular agriculture (including cultivated meat) as well as the challenges of implementing the concept of sustainable food systems into international trade law. These strands of research build on and expand his work on second and third generation barriers to trade (including measures to regulate toxicity and other public health measures).

He joined the School of Law in 2018 from Warwick Law School, and has previously worked at the University of Miami. He obtained his law degree in 2002 and a master’s degree in international law in 2005, both from the Faculty of Law at the University of Giessen / Germany. From 2002 to 2005, he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg / Germany, during which time he also served as legal counsel for the Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations in New York. In 2006, he graduated from Stanford Law School with an LL.M. degree. Professor Wagner subsequently clerked for then-President of the Supreme Court of Israel, Aharon Barak. Starting in 2007, he worked for the Brussels office of WilmerHale.

Professor Wagner was elected the Executive Vice-President of the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL) in 2018 and re-elected in 2021, having served in governance roles in SIEL previously. Professor Wagner has advised international organizations and has presented at academic and professional conferences in the areas of international economic law and autonomous weapon systems.

Professor Wagner is co-founder and Co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of Law & Geoeconomics (L&G) published by Brill and served as the Associate Editor for the Journal of World Investment and Trade (JWIT) until 2023 and sits on the advisory boards of the European Law Students Association John H. Jackson WTO Moot Court Competition and the Göttingen Journal of International Law (GoJIL).

Professor Wagner holds an appointment as Visiting Research Fellow at the Mandela Institute at the Oliver Schreiner School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He has held visiting professor positions at the Universidad Externado de Colombia in Bogota, the Universidad Los Andes in Bogota, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and Public International Law in Heidelberg, the Center for Teaching and Research of WTO Disputes at the Southwest University of Political Science and Law in Chongqing and the law faculties at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, the University of Leipzig, the University of Hamburg and the Fundaçao Getulio Vargas in São Paulo.