Dr Andreas Kotsakis

Dr Andreas Kotsakis is an interdisciplinary international and environmental law scholar. He joined Kent in September 2022, having also taught at the London School of Economics (LSE), SOAS University of London, and Oxford Brookes University. Before beginning his academic career, Andreas interned at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome, gainin  experience of international development, agricultural policy and the operation of a United Nations specialized agency.

Andreas holds a PhD in Law from LSE (2012), awarded without corrections for a thesis entitled 'The Biological Diversity Complex: A History of Environmental Government'. He also holds an LLM in Environmental Law from the University of Nottingham (2004), an LLB in Civil Law from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2003). He has been a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2014, achieved through a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education.

He is the author of The Use of Biodiversity in International Law: A Genealogy of Genetic Gold (Routledge, 2021). His research has appeared in major academic journals, such as the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, Leiden Journal of International Law, Transnational Environmental Law, and the Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law, as well as in major edited collections on environmental law, biodiversity, law and ecology, and law and development.

Andreas has secured research funding from the Royal Society, the Society of Legal Scholars, and the Socio-Legal Studies Association. He is Principal Investigator of the 2026-27 Society of Legal Scholars project 'Core and Periphery in Legal Education: How the Climate Crisis and Climate Injustice Reconfigure the Law School'. He previously led the Royal Society-funded project 'John Evelyn, Environmental Knowledge, and International Thought' and was co-Investigator on funded projects concerning critical environmental law and extractivism.

Across these activities, he combines conceptually ambitious scholarship with collaborative research and a sustained commitment to critically engaged legal education.

Andreas asks how law structures the crises and problems it is expected to solve, and how it can enable transformation while distributing authority, benefits and harms more justly. Organised around authority, responsibility and space, his programme connects environmental law with legal geography, political economy, environmental history and socio-legal research.

One of his major research strands examines authority and knowledge in international environmental governance. His monograph, The Use of Biodiversity in International Law: A Genealogy of Genetic Gold (Routledge, 2021), reconstructs the history of the Convention on Biological Diversity and shows how conservation, development, biotechnology and markets competed to define biodiversity and its value. His 2026 article, 'IPBES in a Double Bind: Science, Sovereignty and the Craft of Authority', uses Gregory Bateson's theory to examine an institution expected both to respect intergovernmental control and to produce knowledge capable of orienting transformative change. A connected project reconceptualises international organisations as 'machines': changing compositions of states, experts, procedures, data and practices whose effects exceed a simple principal-agent model. It links institutional design with science-policy interfaces and emerging forms of cybernetic governance. The first output, ‘Beyond the Machinery Metaphors: Towards A Theory of International Organizations as Machines,’ was published in the Leiden Journal of International Law.

A second research strand concerns responsibility for cumulative harm arising from environmental disasters and pollution. With Avi Boukli, Andreas developed 'transversal harm' to explain how extractive industries generate linked environmental, social and personal harm across pollutants, regulatory regimes, corporate structures, supply chains, jurisdictions and time. Studies of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and mineral extraction in Cerro de Pasco, Peru, show how discrete lawful decisions can combine into persistent harm for which no institution accepts responsibility. Current work extends this approach to water extraction, global commodity chains, corporate responsibility, transition minerals and sacrifice zones.

The third research strand, currently developed, examines the legal geography of cities, zones and infrastructure. One project will examine sustainable urbanisation programmes in the Global south, while a related UK project will investigate the 'zones of renewal' created by UK’s new industrial strategy.

Across these projects, Andreas combines doctrinal analysis with archival research and legal-institutional mapping, drawing on critical legal studies, political ecology, law and political economy, and law and the humanities. He welcomes collaboration with scholars, policymakers, regulators, practitioners, and civil society on infrastructure, pollution, biodiversity, cities and just transition.

2026/27 Academic year:

LAWS5850 - Environmental Law (LLB)

LAWS8140 - Public International Law (LLM)

LAWS8390 - Global Pollution Law (LLM)

LAW4003 - Critical Introduction to Law (LLB)

His previous teaching includes Climate Change and Renewable Energy Law; International Economic Law; Transnational Environmental Law; Law, Globalisation and Development; War Law; Jurisprudence; and Property Law

Andreas welcomes PhD proposals that are legally rigorous, critically and theoretically ambitious and open to interdisciplinary methods. Suitable fields include public international and environmental law, environmental justice, climate and energy law, biodiversity, pollution, extractivism, corporate responsibility, international organisations, cities and infrastructure, global value chains, legal geography, law and political economy, and law and the humanities. He is especially interested in how authority, knowledge, space and responsibility are distributed, and in projects connecting local conflicts with national, regional or international law.

Potential topics include science-policy interfaces; the Convention on Biological Diversity and IPBES; transversal harm and sacrifice zones; oil, mining, agricultural and transition harms; water and corporate responsibility across supply chains; just transition; planning and pollution around green or digital infrastructure; data centres; international organisations; and critical histories of environmental law. Proposals should identify a clear legal problem and explain why the chosen method can answer it.

Andreas supports comparative, historical, theoretical and socio-legal work using archives, institutional documents, interviews, case studies, discourse analysis or legal mapping. Interdisciplinarity should sharpen rather than replace legal analysis: candidates should explain how geography, political economy, history, political ecology, philosophy or social theory changes the legal question and reading of primary materials. Researchers are also encouraged to consider where findings can be translated responsibly for policymakers, practitioners or affected communities.

Supervision is tailored to the researcher's stage, background and working practices. Andreas offers a demanding but supportive relationship in which candidates can test speculative ideas, receive candid feedback and take ownership of decisions. He encourages seminar and conference participation, publication planning, and relevant teaching and professional development. Prospective candidates should send a concise outline of the question, significance, likely sources and methods, and why Kent is an appropriate home for the project.

Current supervisions:

1. Abdelghany Sayed Abdelmotaleb (PhD), When ‘human shields’ (do not) shield: International law, visuality, and the regulation of modern war

2. Peter Drury (PhD), Overcoming Structural Injustice in Colombia: Corporate Crime, Transitional Justice, and the Limits to Evidence

3. Yaninna Aliaga Rojas (PhD), The Chilean Paradox: Dark Skies, Satellites and Space Law from the Global South

Prior to his doctorate, he interned as a policy analyst in international development and agricultural policy at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).