Dr I-Ju Chen

Dr I-Ju Chen

Birmingham Law School
Teaching Fellow

Dr I-Ju Chen is an international economic law scholar with recognised teaching and scholarships. Her pedagogical approach involves a wide range of her practising experience and research training. She is a guest lecturer to law schools in Taiwan, and in 2019 she delivered a lecture on commercial law and the impact of Brexit to Chinese judges. She is also an experienced international law mooting coach and judge. In 2014, she coached UCL LLM students to win Telder Public International Law Moot Court. In 2021, she was appointed as a panellist in the Final Oral Round in the 19th John H. Jackson WTO Moot Court competition.

Dr Chen was a Visiting Scholar of the School of Law at Durham University. She is a member of the editorial board of the Chinese (Taiwan) Yearbook of International Law and Affairs. She is additionally an expert reviewer of policy reports of think-tanks in East Asia, e.g. Korea Legislation Research Institute. 

Qualifications

  • PhD in law (University of Birmingham)
  • LLM in EU competition law (University College London)
  • LLM and LLB (National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan)
  • Diploma of international investment law, The Pearl River Delta Academy, Instituto de Estudos Europeus de Macau
  • Certificate of trade negotiation, Academy of Global Governance, European University Institute
  • Public international law, The Hague Academy of International Law

Biography

Dr I-Ju Chen joined Birmingham Law School in March 2022. Previously, she was a visiting lecturer of the Law School. She taught on WTO law and legal systems at Birmingham City University (BCU), where she was a research committee member and prepared for the institution’s submission for the national assessment (research excellence framework, REF). In July 2021, this REF involvement won the BCU Faculty of Business, Law, and Social Science Dean’s Award ‘Exceptional Team of the Year’. Between 2020 and 2021, she had been a lead coordinator of the West Midlands Legal Doctoral Network to advise and support doctoral researchers in law schools in the region.

Dr Chen was a recipient of a prestigious overseas study scholarship provided by the Taiwanese Government to complete her LLM at UCL and PhD at the University of Birmingham. Her PhD was also sponsored by the College of Arts and Law at the University of Birmingham and won Best Paper in Taiwan Science Symposium held in Bristol in 2018. Prior to pursuing further study in the UK, she practised for 3 years as a senior legal and compliance executive of a multinational banking insurance company, BNP Paribas Cardif, and a litigation paralegal. While working as a legal research fellow in the leading science and technology law and policy think-tank in Taiwan, she offered legal opinions to drafts and amendments to regulations. She published in periodicals; wrote reports for government commissioned projects; and designed CPD courses to small and medium-sized enterprises.

She was also an executive editor of the Science and Technology Law Review published by the think-tank.

Teaching

  • EU Law
  • Land Law;
  • Law, justice and ethics;
  • Legal solutions

She also taught on contract law; equity and trusts and led a workshop on legal essay writing.

Research

Dr I-Ju Chen’s current research focuses on three areas: the linkage between trade and sustainable development in the WTO and Asia-Pacific; gender and trade; EU external economic relations law and policy. She is a co-investigator of a research project on the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment which won Academic Research Grant of the Macau Foundation and the Institute of European Studies of Macau in China. She is the Rapporteur of two headnotes on regional fishery management organisations in Oxford International Organisations (OXIO) databases. She has several working papers respectively on gender equality embedded in labour provisions in the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement and environmental clauses in free trade agreements in Asia-Pacific.   

Her articles appear in renowned academic journals, such as Chinese Journal of Comparative Law (OUP), Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, and Asian Journal of WTO and International Health Law and Policy.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Chen, I-J 2022, 'A critical appraisal of initiatives of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) for the blue economy: deadlocks and any possible way out', Asian Journal of WTO and International Health Law and Policy, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 85-113. <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4071973>

Chen, I-J 2021, 'The impact of COVID-19 on global administrative law', Revista Juris Poiesis, vol. 24, no. 36, pp. 280-287. <http://periodicos.estacio.br/index.php/jurispoiesis/article/viewFile/10284/47968165>

Chen, I-J 2019, 'An Analysis of Establishing Regional Environmental Governance Through a Mega Regional Trade Agreement: The Asia-Pacific Practice', Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 1-31. <https://irp.cdn-website.com/ee52edf5/files/uploaded/Chen_AR_DPBW_final_B4C3cjARKGJiufgaxyOW.pdf>

Chen, I-J 2016, 'The Interface Between Companies’ Fundamental Rights and Competition Law Enforcement in the EU: Past, Present and Future', Global Antitrust Review, no. 9, pp. 7-41. <http://www.icc.qmul.ac.uk/media/icc/gar/gar2016/1.I-Ju-Chen-article-Gar-2016.pdf>

Book/Film/Article review

Chen, I-J 2023, 'New Asian Regionalism in International Economic Law by Pasha L. Hsieh Cambridge University Press (2021), pp. 300', Chinese (Taiwan) Yearbook of International Law and Affairs, vol. 39, pp. 390–391. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004532069_012

Chen, I-J 2022, 'Book Review: Alexandr Svetlicinii. China’s State-Owned Enterprises under EU Merger Control. Routledge 2020. ISBN 9780367513207. Pp. 144.', Chinese Journal of Comparative Law, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 163-166. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjcl/cxac010

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