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People
> Natural Resources research group

Lorenzo Cotula

Principal researcher (law and sustainable development), Natural Resources; team leader, legal tools

Lorenzo Cotula leads research, policy engagement and field-level projects on the legal arenas where natural resource governance meets the global economy – cutting across land and natural resource law and governance; international investment law; human rights law, business & human rights, and responsible investment; political economy of natural resources and foreign investment; and legal empowerment, citizen agency and public accountability.
Full biography

Lorenzo is also a visiting professor at the School of Law, University of Strathclyde.

Expertise

Land and natural resource governance; economic law, particularly international investment law; human rights; responsible investment, particularly in agriculture and the extractive industries; law and political economy in natural resource investments; legal and socio-legal research methods; legal empowerment approaches; citizen participation in law reform. Extensive country experience in Africa and Asia.

Before IIED

Research consultant to the Legal Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO); collaboration with two Italian NGOs.

Education
Postgraduate certificate in Sustainable Business, University of Cambridge; PhD in Law, University of Edinburgh; MSc in Development Studies (Distinction), London School of Economics; Degree in Law (cum laude), University "La Sapienza" of Rome.

Current work

Lead on Legal Tools for Citizen Empowerment, a collaborative initiative to strengthen rights in policy arenas associated with natural resource investments – from local land governance to international investment treaties.

Lorenzo Cotula's picture
Telephone: 
+44 (0) 131 300 0161
Email: 
lorenzo.cotula@iied.org
Twitter: @LCotula
Google Scholar
 
Languages: English, Italian and French

Lorenzo Cotula's projects

Forestry tractor carrying fruits from a field

ALIGN: Advancing Land-based Investment Governance

Project, Sep 2020
a small farm

Strengthening land governance, local to global

Project, Jun 2020
aerial view of an oil palm plantation

Land rights and investment treaties

Project, May 2020
A large group of people sitting in a circle outdoors

Democratising international investment law

Project, May 2020
An open pit mine

Realigning investment contracts with sustainable development

Project, May 2020
A sign protesting against development

Understanding growing pressures on land: 'land grabbing' and beyond

Project, Oct 2014
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Lorenzo Cotula's blog posts

Páramo landscape

Investment disputes from below: whose rights matter?

Long read, Jul 2020
A road going into the distance splits two fields

Stopping land and policy grabs in the shadow of COVID-19

Blog, Jun 2020
Two people carrying containers on their heads

COVID-19 and the sites of rights resilience

Blog, May 2020
A cement factory

COVID-19 and global economic ordering: radical shift or more of the same?

Blog, Apr 2020
A trail through burned rainforest

Land rights and investments: why business standards are not enough

Blog, Mar 2020
An aerial view of the Southwest Mau Forest and neighbouring tea estates in Kenya (Photo: Patrick Sheperd/CIFOR, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Development finance and land rights: how we can do better

Blog, Mar 2019
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Links to other sites

Law and political economy of commodity rushes: reflections on “land grabbing” in the global South

Academic blog, September 2019

Rural producer agency and agricultural value chains

Webinar report/video, September 2019

Justice and the Anthropocene

Video from a roundtable, Kings College London, April 2018

Farming for the Future

Video from the Arcus Forum, November 2015

 
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