From Green to Blue: International Economic Law and Sustainable Development Finance

Applications are invited for a fully-funded three-year PhD to commence in October 2025. 

The PhD will be based in the Faculty of Business and Law, and will be supervised by Professor Leïla Choukroune and Professor Pierre Failler. 

Candidates applying for this project may be eligible to compete for one of a small number of bursaries available. Successful applicants will receive a bursary to cover tuition fees for three years and a stipend in line with the UKRI rate (£19,237 for 2024/25). Bursary recipients will also receive £2,000 for fieldwork purposes. 

Costs for student visa and immigration health surcharge are not covered by this bursary. For further guidance and advice visit our international and EU students ‘Visa FAQs’ page.    

Whilst the COP 29 has been criticised as a travesty of Justice for its poor financing mechanism, the question of sustainable development finance has never been more relevant. It poses a series of issues for International economic law at a time, the State is still its main subject, but not its only actor. 

However, less than 1% of official development assistance (ODA) funding is allocated to ocean with development with SDG14 being one of the most underfunded SDGs, with only 0.68% of total SDG financing directed to it in 2021. Yet, an influential study by an American organisation, - the Paulson Institute, in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), in 2020 estimated that the world needed to spend $700 billion more annually to address the dramatic decline in biodiversity. But current spending was estimated at $124 billion a year. In their flagship ‘State of Finance for Nature’ report, the United Nations Environment Programme estimated that by 2022 the amount spent on conserving nature annually was about $150 Billion and argued it needed to rise to $484 billion a year by 2030.  

From green to blue finance, a series of tool have been created to address this pressing need (green and blue bonds, sustainability bonds, blue debt swap mechanisms, green and blue loans etc). But “greening or “blueing” is difficult to demonstrate. That is that these new financial tools do not always contribute to the betterment of the environment and climate. Rather they tend to increase the financialization of development and the already large debt of the Global South. 

In interrogating sustainable development finance from green to blue economies, this PhD research will contribute to defining possible avenues for fairer financing and debt free(er) Global South.  In doing so, it will question the readiness and accuracy of existing international economic law’s institutions and mechanisms in proposing alternative global and regional avenues for a variety of public and private actors of development. Theoretical and interdisciplinary it is also based on fieldwork and case studies defined and performed collegially with the candidate and suitable to his/her background and experience. 

How to apply 

We’d encourage you to contact Professor Leïla Choukroune (leila.choukroune@port.ac.uk) to discuss your interest before you apply, quoting the project code.

When you are ready to apply, you can use our online application form. Make sure you submit a personal statement, proof of your degrees and grades, details of two referees, proof of your English language proficiency and an up-to-date CV.  Our ‘How to Apply’ page offers further guidance on the PhD application process. 

Please also include a research proposal of 1,000 words outlining the main features of your proposed research design – including how it meets the stated objectives, the challenges this project may present, and how the work will build on or challenge existing research in the above field.
 

If you want to be considered for this funded PhD opportunity you must quote project code LAW50340125 when applying. Please note that email applications are not accepted.