Dr Henok Asmelash

Birmingham Law School
Associate Professor in International Economic Law

Contact details

Telephone: +44(0)121 414 6045
Email: h.b.asmelash@bham.ac.uk

Address: Birmingham Law School
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Henok Asmelash is an Associate Professor in International Economic Law at Birmingham Law School. Before joining the University of Birmingham, he was a Postdoctoral Global Fellow at New York University and a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg.

Henok has been awarded the Global Innovation Fellowship from the British Academy (£147,087.37) and is currently on a policy secondment with the Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC.

His research focuses on legal and policy issues at the intersection of trade, energy and the environment with a particular emphasis on the role of trade law and policy in the energy transition and African economic integration. He has published his work in leading international law journals such as the Journal of International Economic Law, the European Journal of International Law and Journal of World Investment and Trade. His publications have been cited widely, including by governmental and intergovernmental bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Qualifications

PhD in International Law and Economics (Bocconi University)
LLM in International Economic Law and Policy (University of Barcelona)
LLM in Business Law (Addis Ababa University)
LLB (Jimma University)
Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (University of Birmingham)

Biography

Henok holds a PhD in International Law and Economics from Bocconi University (Milan) and LLM degrees in International Economic Law and Policy from the University of Barcelona and in Business Law from Addis Ababa University. He has held visiting research and teaching positions at various institutions, including the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, University of St. Gallen, Bocconi University and University of Barcelona.

He has consulted governmental and intergovernmental institutions such as OBREAL Global, the World Institute for Development Economics Research the International and the Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development on a range of legal and policy issues related to trade, energy, environment and regional economic integration.

Henok is a marathoner with a personal best of 02:46:15 set at the 2024 London Marathon.

Teaching

International and European Economic Law (Module Leader)
International Trade Law and Policy (LLM) (Module Leader)
Preferential Trade Agreements and Regional Blocks (LLM)
Legal Foundations of the European Union

Postgraduate supervision

Henok is interested in supervising students on any of the following areas:

International trade law
International investment law
Regional economic integration in Africa
Global energy transition governance

Find out more - our PhD Law page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

Henok’s research primarily focuses on legal and policy issues at the intersection of trade, energy and the environment with a particular emphasis on the regulation of energy subsidies in the multilateral trading system and other intergovernmental forums. Another strand of his research examines the external and non-economic dimensions of the regional economic integration process in Africa.

Publications

Recent publications

Book

de Amstalden, M, Moran, N & Asmelash, H (eds) 2023, International Economic Law: New Approaches and Issues. European Yearbook of International Economic Law, 1 edn, Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41996-6

Article

Asmelash, H 2026, 'Towards a Green Continental Market: A Critical Analysis of the Environmental Governance Gaps of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)', Legal Issues of Economic Integration, pp. 125.

Mekonnen, S & Asmelash, H 2024, 'Reforming Ethiopian Bilateral Investment Treaties in Line with Domestic Development Policies: Challenges, Prospects and Simplified Reform Options', Journal of African Law. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021855324000214

Asmelash, H 2023, 'The Role of International Trade Law in the Energy Transition', The Journal of World Investment & Trade, vol. 24, no. 6, pp. 847–878. https://doi.org/10.1163/22119000-12340312

Asmelash, H 2023, 'The WTO Dispute Settlement System as a Forum for Climate Litigation?', Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 321-333. https://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12490

Asmelash, H 2022, 'The First Ten Years of WTO Jurisprudence on Renewable Energy Support Measures: Has the Dust Settled Yet?', World Trade Review, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 455–478. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1474745622000180

Asmelash, H 2022, 'The Regulation of Environmentally Harmful Fossil Fuel Subsidies: From Obscurity to Prominence in the Multilateral Trading System', European Journal of International Law, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 993–1023. https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chac043

Asmelash, H 2022, 'The Turn to Safeguard Measures in the Solar Trade War', Journal of World Trade, vol. 56, no. 5, pp. 803–830. https://doi.org/10.54648/trad2022033

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Asmelash, H 2024, Climate litigation and international trade law. in F Sindico, K McKenzie, G Medici-Colombo & L Wegener (eds), Research Handbook on Climate Change Litigation. Research Handbooks in Climate Law, Edward Elgar, pp. 326-341. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800889781.00024

Asmelash, H 2022, The Legacy of the SADC Tribunal in International Investment Law. in H Ruiz Fabri & E Stoppioni (eds), International Investment Law: An Analysis of the Major Decisions. 1st edn, Studies in International Trade and Investment Law, Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 529–544. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781509929078.ch-030

Chapter

Asmelash, H 2025, Energy and the Glasgow Climate Pact: Paving the Way for Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform. in RC Brears & J Lindley (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Policy and Law. 1st edn, Palgrave Studies in Sustainable Futures (PSSF), Palgrave Macmillan Cham, pp. 163-184. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55387-5_22

Asmelash, H & Kassahun, T 2022, Higher Education in the framework of African Continental and Regional Integration. in Materials on African Regional and Continental Integration in Higher Education. OBREAL Global, pp. 65-95. <https://haqaa2.obsglob.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Materials-on-African-Regional-and-Continental-Integration-in-Higher-Education-1.pdf>

Other contribution

Asmelash, H 2026, Fuel Subsidies Are an Easy Fix for the Iran War’s Energy Price Shock—and the Wrong One.

Asmelash, H 2024, Aligning International Trade Law with the Energy Transition. University of Birmingham. <https://blog.bham.ac.uk/lawresearch/2024/01/aligning-international-trade-law-with-the-energy-transition/>

Asmelash, H 2024, US Inflation Reduction Act: Yet Another Green Industrial Policy on Trial at the WTO. University of Birmingham. <https://blog.bham.ac.uk/lawresearch/2024/04/us-inflation-reduction-act-yet-another-green-industrial-policy-on-trial-at-the-wto/>

View all publications in research portal