Dr Joshua Paine

Joshua (Josh) Paine joined the University of Bristol as a Lecturer in Law in January 2020 and has been a Senior Lecturer in Law since January 2022. Prior to coming to Bristol, Josh was a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law for three years. Josh is an international lawyer with a focus on international economic law (primary focus on international investment law, secondary focus on international trade law) and international dispute settlement.

Josh’s research in these areas has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals including, among others, the European Journal of International Law, International & Comparative Law Quarterly and the Journal of International Economic Law, and in several edited volumes with leading publishers. Josh has presented his research at the OECD investment treaty conference and the European Commission. He has given oral evidence to the House of Commons International Trade Committee and his written evidence has been cited extensively in reports of the International Trade Committee and House of Lords International Agreements Committee.  Josh serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of World Investment & Trade. He is a member of the Trade and Public Policy (TaPP) network and the Academic Forum on ISDS. In 2017 he was the winner of the European Society of International Law Young Scholar Prize.

Josh’s first monograph The Functions of International Adjudication and International Environmental Litigation will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2024. The book uses the focus of environmental disputes to compare the functions of international tribunals across the contexts of adjudication in the World Trade Organization and under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, International Court of Justice litigation, and investment treaty arbitration. Specifically, the book analyses how adjudicators across these settings manage the challenges of change in applicable legal norms or relevant facts, determining the appropriate standard and method of review when scrutinising State conduct for compliance with international obligations, and contributing to wider processes of dispute settlement.

Josh holds a PhD in law from the University of Melbourne, an LLM in international law from University of Cambridge, and a BA/LLB (Hons) from the Australian National University. He has previously taught various law units at the Universities of Luxembourg, Melbourne, Canberra, and the Australian National University, and worked as a judge’s associate in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Josh is admitted as a lawyer in New South Wales, Australia. In 2014 Josh held a visiting fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.