Bio
I am an associate professor of agricultural, food and agri-environmental law at the Institute of Law, Politics and Development (Dirpolis). I am also a registered lawyer (Bar of Pisa, Italy).
I graduated in law at the University of Pisa with honours in 2002 with a thesis on the regulation of food chains. I have a PhD in Italian and Comparative Agricultural Law from the University of Pisa (2007), with a thesis on agricultural risks as regulated in European and national agricultural legal frameworks. I have been a visiting scholar at several law schools and institutions in the UK (University of Leeds, University of Cambridge, Institute of Advanced Legal studies of London University). I have taught at the Université Toulouse 1 Capitole, Faculté de droit (FR) and at the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), Faculty of Law of Ribeirao Preto.
I am a member of the Editorial Board of the ‘Legal Issues in Transdisciplinary Environmental Studies’ (LITES) Book Series (Publisher: Springer); of the EU Agrarian Law journal (Publisher: De Gruyter); of the International Advisory and Peer Review Board of the Quarterly Journal of Environmental Law (Publisher: Giappichelli). I am a reviewer for several Italian journals on agri-food law.
I am deputy-coordinator for the PhD Programme in Human Rights and Global Politics: Legal, Philosophical and Economic Challenges, which includes agri-food law amongst the research areas involved.
I am a member of the management board of the World Union of Agricultural Law Professors (UMAU). I am also a member of the Italian Agrarian Law Association (AICDA) and of Italian Food Law Association (AIDA-IFLA).
Research
My research activity is totally within the field of 'agricultural and food law'. I am currently working on food sustainability, a broad conceptual framework that mainly deals with the social and environmental impacts of the food systems. This includes complex issues, such as the environmental and climatic impacts of food production, the health problems linked to food consumption, and the demand for a more equitable food system. It also addresses the technological challenges (e.g. digital agriculture and smart-agrifood) to which modern agricultural law has to respond.
From 2020 to 2023 I will be carrying out the Jean Monnet Module SUSTAIN - EU Law on Sustainable and Climate-Resilient Agriculture after the European Green Deal, which aims to spread knowledge of EU actions on sustainable and resilient food systems.
In the last few years, I have worked on both Italian and EU law regarding the labeling and quality of food, and food security and the right to food which were also addressed from the perspective of international law, focusing on the rules of international trade (covered in my most recent monograph).
Publications
Courses
I teach the following courses (the first two in English, the third in Italian):
- Agricultural Law and Human Rights for PhD students following the programme of Human Rights and Global Politics: Legal, Philosophical and Economic Challenges;
- English on Global Food Security to post-graduate Students of the Master's Degree in International Security Studies (organized by Sant’Anna School in conjunction with the University of Trento);
- an introduction to agri-food law to undergraduate and postgraduate students (in conjunction with Prof. E. Cristiani).
I also deliver courses for undergraduate and postgraduate students (courses whose topic changes from year to year). For the academic year 2020/2021, I am teaching:
- Food security and international trade in the face of a pandemic (12 hours) (in Italian);
- Agri-food system goes digital: challenges and opportunities for policy-makers (10 hours) (in Italian).
I am the co-director of the winter school “Food, sustainability and rights” (8-12 February 2021, 7-11 February 2022, in Italian) for undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students from different backgrounds (e.g. law, political science, life sciences and engineering) who are interested in understanding the governance of agri-food systems.
I am the director of a summer school on “EU Law on Digital Agriculture”, (40 hours) which will be held in English in Pisa from 5-9 July 2021.