Anna Beckers (A.)

At the moment, Anna focuses on three core substantive fields of research.  

A significant time is spent on the relevance of law in the construction and organization of global value chains in the context of the project CHAINLAW - Responsive Law for Global Value Chains.

In addition, Anna is also working on the regulation and liability on new technologies, specifically Artificial Intelligence. In this context, she has  published a co-authored book on Three Liability Regimes for Artificial Intelligence (Hart Publishing, Oxford,  2021) that has recently been also published in a revised and updated version in German as Digitale Aktanten, Hybride, Schwärme. Drei Haftungsregime für künstliche Intelligenz (Suhrkamp, Berlin 2024).

Finally, Anna is also interested in the role that the EU and its private law play in the global ordering landscape and the relation between EU private law and transnational law. In that context, Anna has recently published a co-edited book on  The Foundations of European Transnational Private Law (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2024, edited by Anna Beckers, Hans-W. Micklitz, Rodrigo Vallejo & Pia Letto-Vanamo).

Anna also continues to be involved in research and activities related to the field of business and human rights and corporate sustainability. This research interest is based on her earlier PhD and postdoctoral research, most prominently related to her 2015 published book Enforcing Corporate Social Responsibility Codes (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2015).

Anna's list of publications can be found in the university repository.

Anna currently supervises four talented PhD researchers:

• Blessing Eze - The Role of Private Documents in Regulating Global Value Chains
• Sarah Gove - A Conflict of Law Approach to Global Value Chains 
• Daria Kotova - Digitalization of Value Chains and Competition and Market Practices Law as Responsive Law
• Gian Luca Traverso - Green Consumption: Consumer Law, Consumer Activism and the Right to Repair

CHAINLAW - Responsive Law for Global Value Chains. European Research Council Starting Grant 2023-2028 (grant agreement 101076292).

Forthcoming publications:

Anna Beckers (2025), The Remains of the Corporation: A Future of Fragmented Corporate Personhood, in: Hans-W. Micklitz & Giuseppe Vettori (eds), The Future of the Person, Hart Publishing, forthcoming.