Nicola Charwat

Nicola Charwat is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Business Law & Taxation at Monash Business School, Monash University, with over twenty years of tertiary sector experience. She has held significant leadership roles including Deputy Head of Department (2019-2023), Director of Higher Degree Research (2016-2019), and Director of Education (2023), while actively teaching international trade law units and supervising PhD students.

Educational Background:

• LLB(Hons), UK
• LLM International Law, UK
• Professional Legal Practice Course, UK
• PhD in Law, University of Melbourne

Dr Charwat's research centers on international trade law and governance, with deep engagement in social justice, civil society participation, and historical analysis of trade systems. She critically examines how non-state actors influence WTO dispute settlement, the norm-creation role of regional trade agreements, and intersections between trade law and environmental/human rights protection, often employing interdisciplinary historical methodologies to uncover systemic power dynamics in global governance.

Her publication trajectory reveals evolving focus from foundational WTO dispute settlement analysis (2012-2016) to historical trade norm transmission (2019), then expanding into poverty alleviation (2024) and AI in education (2025). Persistent themes include civil society's role in trade governance, special and differential treatment mechanisms, and the tension between trade liberalization and public interest goals across environmental, health, and social domains.

Scientific Awards:

• HEA Fellowship (2022)
• Nomination for Supervisor of the Year - Monash Graduate Association (2022)

Dr Charwat currently supervises three PhD students and has secured Monash Education Academy funding for a cross-faculty project developing dialogical feedback tools with IT, Education, and Medicine colleagues. She champions educational innovation through the International Educational Leadership Programme, designing frameworks for ethical AI integration in academic integrity, while maintaining active supervision of trade law research exploring historical governance models and contemporary social justice applications.

She drives the International Trade and International Commercial Law Research Group, organizing workshops on digital trade governance and EU-Korea labor disputes, fostering critical dialogue on emerging challenges in trade law standard-setting through collaborations with institutions like NCTU School of Law.