In the last few years, many states around the world have faced a series of shocks to their economies—from the seizing up of global supply chains to the weaponization of trade and finance—that have catapulted concerns about how to strike a balance among risk, reward and resilience to the center of public discussions and policy making. This talk introduces a new Risk, Reward and Resilience Framework (RRR) that synthesizes and integrates insights from diverse disciplines and domains. It also applies RRR to two case studies involving economic interdependence: the COVID-19 supply chain shock and China’s economic coercion of Australia. RRR provides policy makers with a new mental model for thinking about and working through complex policy challenges. 

About the speaker

Anthea Roberts, a Professor at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet), is an interdisciplinary researcher and legal scholar who focuses on new ways of thinking about complex and evolving global fields. Her research areas include international law, trade and investment, the effect of geopolitical change on global governance, and understanding and navigating complex systems. Anthea is the Director of the Centre for International Governance and Justice, chairs the ANU Working Group on Geoeconomics, and is a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.

In 2019 and 2022, the League of Scholars named Anthea the Australia's leading international law scholar and, in 2019, the world's leading international law scholar. Her new co-authored book Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why it Matters with Harvard University Press was listed as one of the Best Books of the Year by the Financial Times and Fortune Magazine. Anthea’s first book Is International Law International? (2017) won the American Society of International Law’s Book Prize and was Oxford University Press’s top-selling law monograph worldwide in 2017-2018.