Researcher Spotlight: Ntina Tzouvala

Dr Ntina Tzouvala joined UNSW in January 2025. Prior to this, she was an associate professor at the ANU College of Law. Her work focuses on the history, theory and political economy of international law. She is especially interested in historical materialism, deconstruction, feminist and queer legal theory. Her first monograph, Capitalism as Civilisation: A History of International Law, was published by Cambridge University Press in late 2020. Her book was awarded the 2022 ASIL Certificate of Merit for a preeminent contribution to creative scholarship and the Australian Legal Research Award (ALRA) in the book category. In addition, it was shortlisted for the Deutscher Prize and was awarded a honourable mention in the context of the 2021 Sussex Prize in International Theory. Her work has also appeared in leading international law journals, including the European Journal of International Law, the Leiden Journal of International Law and the Journal of International Economic Law.

What project are you working on that excites you?

I am trying to figure out the relationship between the global power and popularity of the US dollar and international law. I am interested in how international law underpins USA's currency power and, in turn, I want to figure out how the dollar allows the US to exert disproportionate on the formation and interpretation of international law. I am pursuing parts of this project with our UNSW colleague, Dr Jessica Whyte, which adds to the excitement.

What do you hope to achieve with your research/impact & engagement in the next year?

I am currently revising an article for the project that I mentioned above. I hope to publish the piece at a political economy journal, which means that I will need to think about inter-disciplinarity and talking to different audiences. If I manage to be both legible and interesting to both lawyers and political economists, I will be very pleased!

What research/impact & engagement achievement are you most proud of and why?

I am part of the team running an international law podcast, Called to the Bar: International Law over Drinks. Our goal is to provide expert commentary on international law that is also accessible to non-experts. The podcast's popularity has been a very pleasant surprise: it has already made its way into course syllabi, and we have had something like 20,000 plays across 30 episodes so far.