Staff profile

Kristiyan Stoyanov is a final-year PhD candidate at Durham Law School, specialising in International Economic Law, International Environmental Law, and EU Law. He has published his research in leading international journals and presented it at a number of international conferences (i.a.,Oslo, Paris-1, T.M.C. Asser Instituut, Brussels, Brescia, Birmingham, Asian Academy of International Law in Hong Kong, Utrecht). Kristiyan has also organised conferences at Durham Law School, with guest speakers from academia, private practice, and international organisations. For 2024/25, Kristiyan has been awarded a competitive Fulbright Scholarship for a Visiting Research Programme at Columbia Law School.  

Kristiyan also has extensive teaching experience. He worked for two years as a Teaching Fellow at Durham Law School (2022-2024) and before that was a tutor for three years (2018-2020, 2021-2022) at the same institution (2018-2020, 2021-2022). During this period, he taught 10 different modules, with many of his students ranking at the top of their cohort. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.   

Prior to starting his PhD, Kristiyan was a Blue Book Trainee at the Trade Policy & WTO team at Legal Service - European Commission, where he gained experience under, inter alia, the GATT, SCM Agreement, SPS Agreement, and TBT Agreement. He continues to maintain good connections with the world of legal practice and, in particular, the EU institutions.  

Kristiyan holds an M.Jur from Durham University and an LL.B in European Legal Studies from the University of Westminster, having undertaken a year abroad at the University of Antwerp. Throughout his studies, he received numerous scholarships and awards for academic excellence. He also served as the Founding President of ELSA Westminster and completed several internship programs with law firms in Sofia and London during his undergraduate studies. In 2020, he was nominated for Young Jurist of the Year at the 8th National Justice Awards, organised by the Bulgarian Bar Association and the Balkan Media Association. 

MJur

Kristiyan's 48,383-word long MJur thesis examined the enforcement of WTO law in the EU and the US in order to determine if the EU is the odd one. He officially completed the MJur in April 2020. 

Examiners: Prof. dr. Stephen Weatherill (Jacques Delors Professor of European Law, University of Oxford) and Dr. Federico Lupo-Pasini (Associate Professor in Commercial and Corporate Law, Durham University)

PhD

Government Support for Renewable Energy: In Regional Trade Agreements We Trust?

(Supported by a merit-based Durham Law School Scholarship)

• EU Law, in particular State Aid; Constitutional; External Relations
• International Environmental Law
• International Trade Law

Book review

• Commitments and Flexibilities in the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures: An Economically Informed Analysis. José Guilherme Moreno Caiado, Reviewed by Kristiyan Stoyanov 
  
  Stoyanov, K. (2021). Commitments and Flexibilities in the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures: An Economically Informed Analysis. José Guilherme Moreno Caiado, Reviewed by Kristiyan Stoyanov . International Trade Law and Regulation, 27(4), 310-312.

Conference Paper

• Legal Effect of WTO law in the EU: Past, Present, Future (4096 words)
  
  Stoyanov, K. (in press). Legal Effect of WTO law in the EU: Past, Present, Future (4096 words). Presented at 11th Conference of the Postgraduate and Early Professionals/Academics Network of the Society of International Economic Law, University of Birmingham.

Journal Article

• A Global Green Subsidies Race? The EU’s Green Deal Industrial Plan: Effective and WTO-Compatible?
  
  Stoyanov, K. (2025). A Global Green Subsidies Race? The EU’s Green Deal Industrial Plan: Effective and WTO-Compatible?. Journal of World Trade, 59(2), 303-326. https://doi.org/10.54648/trad2025020
• Three Decades of the Nakajima Doctrine in EU Law: Where Are We Now?
  
  Stoyanov, K. (2021). Three Decades of the Nakajima Doctrine in EU Law: Where Are We Now?. Journal of International Economic Law., 24(4), 724-737. https://doi.org/10.1093/jiel/jgab042

Other (Print)

• Case comment: Germany – The Public Sector Asset Purchase Programme and the BVerfG, Judgment of the Second Senate of 05 May 2020, 2 BvR 859/15 (2021) 2 Public Law 435; (1,268 words)
  
  Stoyanov, K. (2021). Case comment: Germany – The Public Sector Asset Purchase Programme and the BVerfG,Judgment of the Second Senate of 05 May 2020, 2 BvR 859/15 (2021) 2 PublicLaw 435; (1,268 words).