Ilil Gabison (LSE) - 2025-26 Students
i.gabison@lse.ac.uk

Obscure Chains, Transparent Prices: Contested Commodification in Global Value Chains

My project comes to grips with the law’s response to what I refer to as ‘the price tag problem’—the exclusion of non-monetisable ‘costs’ (or harms) from commodities’ prices, which cannot, by definition, be reflected in monetary terms. I focus on irrecoverable, environmental harms that unfold across global value chains—a term used to denote fragmented production, transport, retail, and disposal processes that involve several international border crossings in the ‘making’ and ‘unmaking’ of commodities.

I propose that to assess the law’s response to the ‘price tag problem’, we need to better understand the legal mechanisms dedicated to preventing and redressing transboundary harms across global value chains, and their prospects for law versus its foundational commitments to different polities at times of ecological calamity. The project focuses on International Law and European Union Law, combining theoretical, doctrinal, and socio-legal methods.

Primary supervisor: Professor Stephen Humphreys