Contact
Email mariela.deamstalden@otago.ac.nz
Bio
Professor Mariela de Amstalden holds the New Zealand Law Foundation Chair in Law and Policy of Emerging Technologies at the University of Otago, Faculty of Law, and is a Visiting Fellow in Law at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge.
She is Advisory Board member (law) for the UKRI EPSRC-funded CARMA Hub, Executive Council member of the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL) and Convenor of the Law and Technology IG of the International Law Association (Swiss branch).
Professor de Amstalden is also a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.
Teaching
Professor de Amstalden’s teaching interests are international law, law and technologies, intellectual property rights, global economic law and public law.
At Otago, she will be teaching the law and emerging technologies paper in July 2027.
Research
Professor de Amstalden is interested in interdisciplinary scholarship across law, technology and innovation, global economic governance, and intellectual property rights. Her work centres on international law, with particular emphasis on bioeconomies, engineering biology, frontier robotics, and intellectual property rights. It engages with the law from a multi-methodological approach and is open to research collaboration that challenge and contest established but outdated legal dogmas.
Supervision
Professor de Amstalden is accepting requests for supervision in areas of international law and emerging technologies, with a particular interest (but not limited to) synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, autonomous vehicles (aerial, maritime, terrestrial) and frontier robotics, as well as neurotechnologies.
Background
Before joining Otago, Professor de Amstalden was part of an interdisciplinary team funded by the UK Royal Society / British Academy / Leverhulme Trust APEX (Academies Partnership in Supporting Excellence in Cross-disciplinary Research) award on "Integrated Risks of Cultured Meat." During this award, she held Visiting Research Fellowships at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (University of Cambridge), the Centre for Life Sciences Law (University of Basel), and the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (University of Oxford).
Her earlier academic appointments in the UK include Associate Professor in Law and Technology at the University of Exeter Law School and a tenured position as Assistant Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at the University of Birmingham, which she joined from the University of Edinburgh Law School's Scottish Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (SCRIPT). Internationally, she has held appointments as Senior Lecturer (non-tenure-track) in Public International Law and Constitutional Law at the University of St. Gallen (HSG), Switzerland; SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia, Canada; and ARC Research Fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of Melbourne, Australia. She has also been a visiting scholar at the Institute for International Economic Law, Georgetown University, in the United States and at the World Trade Institute, University of Berne in Switzerland.
A Swiss-trained attorney admitted to the Spanish bar since 2011 (currently non-practising), Professor de Amstalden brings private practice experience from the dispute resolution departments of golden circle law firms in Switzerland, focusing on international law and technology-assisted forensics. She has also served as a consultant to the British government (Food Standards Agency), the Swiss government (Department of Public Health), and the United Nations (UNITAR, Knowledge Systems Department). During her clinical legal training, she also clerked for Swiss courts and tribunals in commercial and administrative matters.
Professor de Amstalden holds a PhD in law from the University of Lucerne, Faculty of Law (Switzerland); an LL.M in International Business Law (Intellectual Property Rights) from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands); a Master of Laws in Global Legal Studies from the University of Lucerne, Faculty of Law; a Bachelor of Laws (honours) from UNED in Spain. She also holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCert) from the University of Birmingham in the UK.
Publications
Lewis, M. A., de Amstalden, M., & Paddeu, D. (2026). The tentative governance of drone systems: Balancing hierarchical and collective mechanisms. In M. de Amstalden, A. M. Packer & M. Lewis (Eds.), Future flight governance: Socio-legal, environmental and economic approaches. (pp. 187-205). London, UK: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003563532-14 Chapter in Book - Research
de Amstalden, M., Packer, A. M., & Lewis, M. (Eds.). (2026). Future flight governance: Socio-legal, environmental and economic approaches. London, UK: Routledge, 272p. doi: 10.4324/9781003563532 Edited Book - Research
Packer, A. M., de Amstalden, M., & Lewis, M. (2026). Introduction. In M. de Amstalden, A. M. Packer & M. Lewis (Eds.), Future flight governance: Socio-legal, environmental and economic approaches. (pp. 1-7). London, UK: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003563532-1 Chapter in Book - Research
de Amstalden, M., & Stephens, N. (2025). Alternative proteins. In L. Holloway, M. K. Goodman, D. Maye, M. Kneafsey, A. E. Sexton & A. Moragues-Faus (Eds.), Elgar encyclopedia of food and society. (pp. 20-23). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. doi: 10.4337/9781800887435.00012 Chapter in Book - Research
de Amstalden, M. (2024). Cellular agriculture and intellectual property law. In E. D. G. Fraser, D. L. Kaplan, L. Newman & R. Y. Yada (Eds.), Cellular agriculture: Technology, society, sustainability and science. (pp. 455-468). London, UK: Academic Press. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-443-18767-4.00003-2 Chapter in Book - Research