Johanna Aleria P. Lorenzo is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Public International and European Law and the Amsterdam Center for International Law (ACIL). She is affiliated with the Sustainable Global Economic Law Project (SGEL) project, focusing on the contribution of international organizations and the role of inter-State inequalities in shaping the global economy and its underlying (transnational) legal order. Her teaching includes Master's courses on general international law, international trade law, and the law of international financial institutions (IFI). She also supervises theses in these areas.

Dr. Lorenzo specializes in international law and development (international development law), international trade law, and the legal aspects of IFI operations. Her research and publications concentrate on sustainability, development, and global governance issues arising from the intersections of international economic law, international environmental law, and international human rights law. Her forthcoming book, International Financial Institutions and Sustainable Development: Lawmaking and Accountability (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2025) elaborates the ways that international organizations and non-State actors participate in the international lawmaking process concerning sustainable development—by scrutinizing the safeguard policies of multilateral development banks (MDBs), such as the World Bank's Environmental and Social Framework, and the independent accountability mechanisms (IAMs) that review MDBs' compliance with such policies. This monograph is based on Johanna's doctoral dissertation, 'International Financial Institutions and International Sustainable Development Law: The Role of Safeguard Systems and Non-State Actors', which was awarded by Yale Law School the Ambrose Gherini Prize for best paper in international law.

Among Dr. Lorenzo's recent works is a contribution to Oxford University Press's 'The UN Sustainable Development Goals: A Commentary' that explains the international law dimensions of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, specifically Goal 10 on reducing inequalities. Prior to joining the University of Amsterdam, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Berlin Potsdam Research Group ‘International Rule of Law – Rise or Decline?’, where she studied the environmental and social implications of the transnational legal order governing economic cooperation activities and infrastructure investments within the Belt and Road Initiative. She has taught international trade law (LL.M. program) and public international law at the University of the Philippines, where she also served as supervising legal officer at its research arm, the Institute of International Legal Studies. Johanna holds  J.S.D. (Doctor of the Science of Law) and LL.M. (Master of Laws) degrees from Yale University, United States, as well as J.D. (Juris Doctor) and B.Sc. (Economics) from the University of the Philippines.

Accountability Mechanisms of Multilateral Development Banks and the Law of International Responsibility, 73(1) International & Comparative Law Quarterly 209 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020589323000556.

‘10: Reduce inequality within and among countries’, in The UN Sustainable Development Goals: A Commentary (Ilias Bantekas and Francesco Seatzu, eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Differential Treatment and Inequalities under the Sustainable Development Goals: Beyond Preferential Market Access, Law and Development Review (2023), https://doi.org/10.1515/ldr-2023-0031. 

Contemporary International Law and China’s Peaceful Development Zeng Lingliang (Book Review), 14 Asian Politics & Policy 290 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1111/aspp.12636.

A Path Toward Sustainable Development Along the Belt and Road, 24(3) Journal of International Economic Law 591 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1093/jiel/jgab032.

A Multilateral Track for Sustainable Development Along the Belt and Road: Aligning Country Ownership with International Rule of Law, KFG Working Paper Series, No. 47, Berlin Potsdam Research Group ‘The International Rule of Law – Rise or Decline?’ (April 2021), available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3831867 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3831867.

Law, Sustainable Development, and Foreign Financing of Infrastructure: Legal Safeguards for Economic, Environmental, and Social Sustainability of Foreign-Funded Infrastructure Projects in the Philippines [Monograph] (University of the Philippines Law Center, 2020).

'To sue or not to sue: Enforcing the obligation to notify under the international health regulations', Symposium: International Law in Pandemic TImes, Völkerrechtsblog (June 2020).

'Integrating Non-Economic Concerns in International Economic Organizations: Learning from the International Financial Institutions’ Approach to Sustainable Development', in Cool Heads in a Warming World: How Trade Policy Can Help Fight Climate Change (Daniel C. Esty and Susan Biniaz, eds., 2019), available at Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy.

International law-making in the field of sustainable development and an emerging droit commun among international financial institutions, 7 Cambridge International Law Journal 327 (2018).

“Development” versus “Sustainable Development”?: (Re-)Constructing the International Bank for Sustainable Development, 51 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 399 (2018).

Investment Promotion as Progressive Realization of Economic and Social Rights, 16 Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and The Law 55 (2015).

States, Societies, and Revolutions: Legal Historical Analysis of Philippine Institutions, 84 Philippine Law Journal 1003 (2010).