Biography
Francesca Leucci has a master's degree in law from Italy, an LL.M. in the Economic Analysis of European Law from the College of Europe in Bruges (BE) and a Ph.D. in Law and Economics of Environmental Damage Assessment from Rotterdam, Hamburg and Bologna Universities (European Doctorate of Law and Economics). During her university studies, she took part in exchange programmes with Heidelberg University (DE) and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris (FR). Francesca has been a teaching assistant in EU law and public finance, a judge assistant at the Administrative Local Court and a stagiaire at the Italian Antitrust Authority. During her PhD, she conducted research stays at iCourts, the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre of Excellence for International Courts and Governance and at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law.
From 2023 to 2025, Francesca was a Lecturer in Law and Environmental Law at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, where she remains an Associate Researcher with the Law Group. From September 2025, she is also a Lead Author for the IPBES Methodological Assessment on biodiversity-inclusive spatial planning (2025-2027) and an Associate Researcher with the Centre for Environment, Economy and Energy (C3E) of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Additionally, she is a qualified lawyer admitted to the Italian Bar. From January 2026, Francesca is a postdoc researcher at ZEP (Zentrum für Europäisches Privatrecht), Graz University and ETL (Institute for European Tort Law) in Vienna.
Francesca publishes papers on environmental damage assessment and liability for ecological damage from a Law and Economics perspective (see below for a complete list). In December 2023, she was awarded the Brenno Galli Prize from the Italian Society of Law & Economics for her paper “Climate Change? L’Addition, s’il vous plaît! A Comparative Law and Economics Perspective on the Calculation of Damages” (prize for the most promising young scholar’s paper presented at the SIDE-ISLE annual conference).
Francesca is fluent in Italian (mother tongue), English and French, she has working knowledge of German and basic knowledge of Dutch.
Main Areas of Research
Francesca's main research areas include environmental law, the economic analysis of environmental liability laws, and, more specifically, remedies for damage to the environment and biodiversity. Drawing on a variety of methodologies (law and economics, comparative and empirical), her core research theme regards stakeholders' incentives to minimise the environmental costs of human activities.
Selected Publications
Articles:
Risky Aprillian and Francesca Leucci, ‘Animal Welfare Claims in Indonesia: Comparative Study of EU Standards and Proposed Regulatory Framework’, Tropical Animal Science Journal 48(6), 2025 (DOI: 10.5398/tasj.2025.48.6.564).
Chad Osorio, Leucci Francesca, and Donatella Porrini, ‘Analyzing the relationship between agricultural AI adoption and government-subsidized insurance’, MDPI Agriculture 2024, 14(10), 1804 (DOI: 10.3390/agriculture14101804).
B. West, M. Bauer, C. Chalkiadakis, N. Dendoncker, T. M. González-Martínez, A. Mascarenhas, F. Leucci, B. Phillips, T. Ploumi, C. Rodriguez, M. Sutton, M. Vandewalle, C. Washbourne, ‘Exploring human-nature relationships in academic literature on the nitrogen cycle’, Ecosystems and People, Volume 20, 2024 - Issue 1 (DOI: 10.1080/26395916.2024.2380856).
Francesca Leucci, ‘Comparing The Efficiency Of Remedies For Environmental Harm: US V. EU’, Comparative Law – Special Issue RESCUING COMPARATIVE LAW AND ECONOMICS? EXPLORING SUCCESSES AND FAILURES OF AN INTERDISCIPLINARY EXPERIMENT – volume 13/01 (ISSN 2038-8993).
Francesca Leucci, ‘Valuing Environmental Damages: Fundamental Issues and Methods’, Erasmus Law Review – Special Issue ‘Using the Law to Save the Planet’ – n. 3/22 (DOI: 10.5553/ELR.000234).
Book chapters:
Leucci, Francesca, 'Remedying the Immeasurable — The Economic Perspective on Climate Damages', in H. Keller and C. Heri (eds), Reparation for Climate Change: The Successes and Limits of Litigation, Sui Generis, 2026 (DOI: 10.38107/073, ISBN: 9783907297735)
Leucci, Francesca, Chapters: I, II, VI, IX, XIV, XV, XX, XXIX, XXX, in Enrico Baffi (ed.), Fondamenti di analisi economica del diritto dei contratti, Giuffré Francis Lefebvre, 2024 (ISBN 9788828869764).
Leucci, Francesca, ‘The economics of climate damage assessment in courts’, in Elbert de Jong (ed.), Corporate Responsibility and Liability in relation to Climate Change, Edward Elgar, 2024 (DOI: 10.4337/9781035333226.00017).
Leucci, Francesca, ‘Unveiling the Loophole of Compensatory Restoration After Damage in the EU’, in E. Cocciolo, J. Jaria-Manzano, A. De la Varga Pastor, M. Marques-Banque, (eds), Rethinking Environmental Law: Connectivity, Intersections and Conflicts in the Global Environmental Crisis, Edward Elgar, 2024 (ISSN 9781839700262).
Books:
‘Law and Economics of Environmental Damage Assessment’, doctoral dissertation, published in June 2024
Scientific reports:
Sini Savilaakso, Joanna Storie, Daniel Depellegrin, Danica Lacarac, Sylive Campagne, Beatriz Caitana Da Silva, Davide Geneletti, Ifigenia Kagkalou, Francesca Leucci, Sandra Luque, Alister Scott, Lyudmyla Zahvoyska, ‘State of knowledge regarding how we can improve adherence to the Mitigation Hierarchy, with a particular focus on the avoid stage’, 2022 [scientific report of the Eklipse Expert Working Group on the Mitigation hierarchy upon a request of the Office Français de la Biodiversité - French Agency of Biodiversity, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7780894].