Alberto ALEMANNO

Alberto Alemanno is Jean Monnet Professor in European Union Law and one of the leading voices on the democratization of the European Union. His research has centred on how the law may be used to improve people’s lives, particularly through the adoption of power-shifting reforms countering social, economic, and political inequalities within European societies and beyond. He has written extensively on risk regulation, public health, consumer rights, food policy as democratic innovation, participatory and deliberative democracy. His current research project focuses on the people’s place in European integration by focusing on an historical and normative reconstruction of the EU ‘democratic problem’. He currently serves as non-resident Democracy Fellow at Harvard University.

Due to his commitment to bridge the gap between academic research and policy action, Alberto was named Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2015, Ashoka fellow in 2019 and Social Innovation of the Year by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in 2022, one of the most influential voices in the European Union by Politico Europe and, lastly, was included in the Project Syndicate's Inaugural List of Forward Thinkers in 2025. 

In addition to his academic writings in law, and public policy, Alberto is a regular contributor to Le Monde, The Guardian, Bloomberg, Politico Europe, Project Syndicate, Le Grand Continent and a frequent commentator on Euronews, BBC World, Al-Jazeera, France24, TV5Monde. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Financial Times, The Economist, Science and Nature among others.

He’s the author of more than fifty scientific articles and several academic books such as 'Nudge and the Law – A European Perspective' and the more accessible Lobbying for Change: Find Your Voice to Create a Better Society', which provides a timely analysis and guide to levelling the democratic playing field by empowering ordinary citizens to speak up and inform policy decisions at local, national and international level. 

He is the founder as well as the editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Risk Regulation (published by Cambridge University Press), of the Revue européenne du Droit (published by Le Grand Continent), and member of the Editorial Committee of the Journal of Consumer Policy as well as of the Stanford Social Innovation Books and regular reviewer of monographs submitted to Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. 

Alberto is also permanent visiting professor at the University of Tokyo School of Public Policy, the College of Europe, in Bruges and in Natolin, a scholar at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law as well as fellow at The Rutgers Institute for Corporate Social Innovation at Rutgers University. 

Alberto has pioneered innovative forms of academic and civic engagement and activism in the EU transnational space via his civic start up The Good Lobby. Its mission is to equalize access to power by strengthening the advocacy capacity of civil society and making corporate political influence more accountable and sustainable. Alberto has been involved in dozens of campaigns, ranging from the first European Citizen Initiative putting an end to international roaming to the adoption of plain-packaging of tobacco products to a decade-old campaign for EU transnational lists, as well as the European Citizen Initiative ‘Voters without Borders’ asking for full political rights for EU citizens regardless of where they live across the continent, and the most recent 'Save Your Right, Save Your Flight', asking the EU to protect travellers’ rights across Europe. He designed several major reforms that were subsequently taken up by EU decision-makers, such as the drafting of the EU whistleblower directive, the first independent EU ethics body and, more recently, the establishment of a dedicated EU Commissioner for Future Generations and intergenerational equity. In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Alberto designed the Ukraine Corporate Index to nudge companies reassessing their market presence on the Russian market. As recognised by the Financial Times and Forbes, this index played a major role in increasing pressure on businesses to position themselves in relation to the invasion. 

Professor Alemanno has worked extensively with policymakers, philanthropies, advocacy groups as well as progressive companies, in developing strategies and novel approaches to questions of democracy, political inequality, and corporate political behaviour. He regularly provides advice to international organizations, including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the European Commission, the European Parliament, the World Health Organization, dozens of non-governmental organizations, philanthropies as well as states.

He sits on the board of several civil society organisations, such as European Alternatives, VoxEurop, Friends of Europe, re:constitution, Access Info Europe, as well as the citizens’ campaigning movement We Move, which operates transnationally.

Alberto qualified as an attorney-at-law in New York and clerked at the Court of Justice of the European Union (2005-2009). He established and directed the EU Public Interest Law Clinic in collaboration with the New York University School of Law, where he has been Global Professor of Law (2014-2018).

Alberto served as visiting professor at Georgetown University (2011-2014), the University of Amsterdam (2017), University of Tokyo (2014-present), the LUISS University in Rome (2013) as well as at the University of St Gallen (2006-2016) and at the College of Europe in Bruges (2007-present).

He has held multiple fellowships at Harvard University where he served as Democracy Fellow (2024-2026) at the Ash Center for Democratic Innovation and Governance and Visiting Scholar at the Center for European Studies Minda de Gunzburg (2024) as well as Europe’s Future Fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna (2022-2023). 

He holds LL.M. from Harvard Law School and the College of Europe as well as a PhD in international economic law from Bocconi University.