Anne van Aaken

Anne Sophia-Marie van Aaken (born 19 April 1969 in Bonn, West Germany) is a German lawyer and economist, who is a full professor of law and economics, legal theory, public international law and European Union law at the University of Hamburg.

Life Van Aaken was born on 19 April 1969 in Bonn, Germany. She completed her Abitur in Bonn. Van Aaken is married to Mark Schneider, the current CEO of Nestlé. The couple have a daughter.

Education From 1987 to 1992, she studied economics and communication sciences at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, earning a Lic. rer.pol. (equivalent to a Master’s in Economics) and a dipl. journ. in communication sciences. From 1992 to 1997, she studied law at LMU Munich, completing the First State Examination in Bavaria.

In 2001, she received her Dr. iur. (summa cum laude) from the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder. Her dissertation, “Rational Choice in der Rechtswissenschaft. Zum Stellenwert der Ökonomischen Theorie im Recht” (“Rational Choice Theory in Law: On the Significance of Economic Theory in Law”), explored the intersection of legal reasoning and economic theory.

In April 2012, she completed her habilitation (venia legendi) in Public International Law and Legal Theory at the University of Osnabrück. She was admitted to the German bar in 2003. She then worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg (2003–2005) and at the Max Planck Institute for Research of Collective Goods in Bonn (2005–2006).

In 2018, Van Aaken was appointed to an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship at the University of Hamburg, becoming the first female legal scholar in Germany to receive this distinction. At Hamburg, she held the Chair for Law and Economics, Legal Theory, Public International Law, and European Law, and served as Director of the Institute of Law and Economics. Since 2023, she continues in these fields as Chair and Co-Director of the Institute of Law and Economics at the University of Hamburg.

She served as Vice President of the European Society of International Law (ESIL) from 2014 to 2017 and as a member of its Board from 2012 to 2020. She was Vice President of the European Association of Law and Economics (EALE) from 2008 to 2013 and a Board Member from 2007 to 2013.

She has been a member of several editorial boards, including the American Journal of International Law, European Journal of International Law, International Theory, and the Journal of International Economic Law. She is also General Editor of the Journal of International Dispute Settlement.

Her main research themes include international economic law, investment protection, regime interaction in international law, corporate social responsibility, corruption, and financial regulation.

Van Aaken has also contributed to legal theory through her work on deliberative institutional economics, analyzing how discourse and rationality influence legal institutions.

Awards

Alexander von Humboldt Professorship (2018) Distinguished Fellow, Hebrew University, Jerusalem (2025). Finalist, Falling Walls/Berlin Science Week (2020) in the category of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Publications