Biography

Josephine van Zeben is part-time professor and incoming Chair of Transnational Law at the Florence School of Transnational Governance.

Professor van Zeben’s research focuses on the regulation of environmental issues by public and private actors across jurisdictions, with particular attention for polycentric governance theory and developments related to the European Union. Her research draws on her teaching of law to non-law students and lawyers from foreign jurisdictions in actively searching for optimal ways of analysing complex legal and societal problems so as to facilitate interdisciplinary solutions.

Professor van Zeben is also co-editor-in-chief of Transnational Environmental Law, series editor of the Transnational Environmental Law book series (both Cambridge University Press) and part of the Transdisplinary Advisory Board of JPI Climate. She is an affiliate faculty member of the Ostrom Workshop since 2014.

Before joining the STG, she was Professor and Chair of the LAW group at Wageningen University (WUR, the Netherlands) and Law Fellow at Worcester College, University of Oxford. She has held visiting professorships at Notre Dame Law School (United States), Bocconi University (Italy), La Trobe Law School (Australia) and has given guest lectures in various international institutions. Between 2012 and 2022, she taught Environmental Law and Policy at ETH Zürich.

She holds a PhD in Law and Economics (cum laude) from the University of Amsterdam, and LLM degrees from Harvard University and the University of Amsterdam (European Private Law), an LLB in Scots Law from the University of Edinburgh and a BA in Social Sciences from University College Utrecht, Utrecht University.

Fields of expertise