Rafael Lima Sakr

I am an expert in international law and governance, international economic law and political economy, banking and financial law and policy. 

I am lecturer at Royal Holloway since 2022. I have a diverse, yet specialised, educational background, with a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an LLM from the Columbia University Law School, and an MPhil in Law (Distinction) and also an LLB (First Class Honours) from the University of Sao Paulo.

Before RHUL, I taught at the Universities of Sheffield, Edinburgh, and Birmingham, as well as the London School of Economics, Queen Mary, University of London, and the University of Sao Paulo. I was also an Emile Noël Post-Doctoral Global Fellow at NYU Law School and a Visiting Researcher at Harvard Law School.

Furthermore, I am, currently, a lead policy analyst at the Bank of England. I am qualified as lawyer in Brazil and have practiced law since 2007. I was a senior associate at Motta, Fernandes Rocha Advogados, a Brazilian law firm specializing in financial and business law, and before that, a senior in-house counsel at the B3 – the Brazilian Stock and Futures Exchange, where I rendered advice in financial law and regulation.

My academic agenda is situated in the intersection of international law and business law. My primary project is on the role of law and lawyers in global governance, economic regionalism, and sustainable development. I am also working on projects related to the international monetary system, digital money, and financial technology.

My teaching philosophy is grounded in my experiences as a practitioner and as an academic. This means that I try to bring to the classroom what both – legal practitioners and scholars – have learned and contributed to the understanding of and reflection on the role of law in distinct social contexts. Studying law is not only an abstract matter of analysing legal ideas or only a vocational matter of mastering legal practices. Rather, I believe law is about how lawyers make sense of and engage with the world and its past, present and future challenges through legal expertise.

Bearing this in mind, I conceive modules as a conversation between me and my students about the law, legal expertise, and the wide society. I help students to make connections, in order to teach how lawyers think and reason about facts, moral values, norms, institutions and disputes. Putting it differently, law studies – as I see – hinge on the balance between content and skills. The two, of course, are related: legal thinking and reasoning involve the ability not only to make sense of facts and norms, but also to classify and analyse them with the purpose of framing problems and disputes as legal issues, to which legal rules, institutions and doctrines are applied, and finally an argument or decision is reached. I try to model this process for students in my modules, and I challenge them to do this in discussions and writing.

Higher Education

Doctor of Philosophy in Law (Ph.D.), London School of Economics and Political Science

Master of Laws (LL.M.), Columbia University School of Law

Master of Philosophy in Law (M.Phil.), University of São Paulo Faculty of Law

Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.), University of São Paulo Faculty of Law

Academic Certification

Certificate in Science and Innovation Diplomacy, University of São Paulo

Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education – Associate Level, London School of Economics and Political Science

Certificate in Law Teaching Improvement, University of São Paulo

Certificate in Law Teaching, Getúlio Vargas Foundation Law School

Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Member of the Society of International Economic Law

Member of the International Law Association