Alemanno obtained a Laurea in Law, cum laude, from the Università degli Studi di Torino, LLM degrees from Harvard Law School and the College of Europe, and a PhD in International Law & Economics from Bocconi University. After working as a lawyer in Paris, he became a qualified attorney in New York in 2004 and then served as a law clerk for Judge Allan Rosas and Judge Alexander Arabadjiev at the Court of Justice of the European Union and for Enzo Moavero Milanesi at the General Court of the European Union. He started teaching in 2009 as associate professor of law at HEC Paris; two years later he became Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law at HEC Paris. He was also Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center between 2011 and 2013. In 2013 he became Global Clinical Professor of Law at New York University School of Law where he established and serves as faculty director the HEC-NYU EU Public Interest Clinic, a program to train new public interest lawyers and civic advocates. He is permanent visiting professor at the University of Tokyo, School of Public Policy and at the College of Europe. He has published in leading international law journals, such as the International Journal of Constitutional Law, the Harvard International Law Journal and the Common Market Law Review, and authored books with university publishers and edited volumes. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Risk Regulation. He contributes to scholarly blogs, including Verfassungsblog, and the Italian legal blog Diritti Comparati, which he co-founded. Alemanno regularly provides advice to a variety of NGOs as well as governments and international organizations on various aspects of European Union law, international regulatory co-operation, international trade and global health law. He sits on the board of several civil society organisations, such as European Alternatives, Access Info Europe, Riparte il Futuro, Diritto di Sapere, as well as the citizens’ pan-EU campaigning movements We Move and Vox-Europe. With Franck Biancheri, Alemanno has been advocating for the creation of transnational lists since the early 2000. Alemanno and Biancheri were among the initiators of Newropeans, the first European transnational movement, in 2009. In 2018 he was one of the initiators of the campaign Real Representation as Europeans for the 2019 European elections with the We Move slogan Alemanno campaigned for plain tobacco packaging by training public officials and health advocates and providing legal assistance to the World Health Organisation. He also lodged a collective complaint on behalf of the European Youth Forum to challenge the institutionalization of unpaid internships in Belgium before the Council of Europe. Alberto Alemanno was involved in the registration of the first European Citizen Initiative aimed at eliminating the international roaming charges in 2013 and provided advice to several others, including the Stop Glyphosate campaign. Alberto Alemanno was named Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2015, European Young Leaders by the "40 under 40" run by Friends of Europe in 2013, and Responsible Leader by the BMW Foundation. In 2015, Alemanno and others published a report on freedom of panorama in Europe for the European Consumer Organisation, advocating prohibition of airline "no-show" clauses. He also contributed to make the appointment of the judges of the European Court of Justice more transparent. In 2016, he prepared a report for WWF advocating reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. Alemanno campaigned and drafted the first EU directive aimed at protecting whistleblowers in the European Union. His text was used by the EU Commission in 2018 when putting foreword its proposal. In Spring 2018, after publishing an op-ed in Le Monde and Politico, Alemanno lodged a complaint before the European Ombudsman arguing that the EU Disinformation Review violates the freedom of expression and right of defense. In 2018, he successfully lodged one of the complaints to the European Ombudsman about José Manuel Barroso’s business activities with Goldman Sachs. In the Italian legislative elections of 2018, Alberto Alemanno was a candidate for the Senate for the Più Europa party led by Emma Bonino. He obtained 5,613 preference votes and was not elected. He is married and has three children. He has acquired Spanish citizenship via marriage.
Civic Ventures
Due to his commitment to bridge the gap between academic research and policy in Europe, Alemanno initiated several civic ventures, including :
, together with HEC Paris and NYU School of Law. The Clinic brings together students from NYU Law School and HEC Paris to help non-government organizations
which promotes civic engagement and participation in Europe through a mixture of academic research, advocacy and training.
The Good Lobby aimed at fostering active citizenship and accountability via citizen-lobbyists
, which has more than 400 international alumni since its inception in 2009 and was transformed into The Lobbying Summer Academy in 2018.
– The European Nudge Network in 2014. Its goal is to offer insight into the behaviour of organizations throughout Europe.
