João Ilhão MOREIRA
Associate Professor
Associate Director of Centre for Studies on Jurisprudence and Legislation of China and Portuguese-Speaking Countries
Professor João Ilhão Moreira is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Macau, where he teaches Civil Procedure and Arbitration. His research and teaching focus on domestic and international dispute resolution, Macau civil and commercial law, and gaming law. Alongside his academic work, he has served as a legal expert in international and domestic proceedings and has acted as a consultant on legal projects.
He holds a DPhil in Law (2020) and an MSt in Legal Research (2016) from the University of Oxford, as well as a Master in Law (2010) and an LLB (2008) from the University of Coimbra. Before joining the University of Macau in 2019, he worked as a lawyer at PLMJ, a Tier 1 law firm in Portugal, and was a part-time lecturer at the University of Coimbra and at the University of Oxford. He has also been a visiting scholar at several institutions, including the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (University of Cambridge) and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law.
He is the author of over 40 academic publications, including the books Dispute Resolution in Macau: Civil Procedure, Arbitration and Mediation (LexisNexis, 2025) and The Regulation of International Commercial Arbitration (Hart Publishing, 2024). His research has appeared in international peer-reviewed journals such as Law & Social Inquiry, Journal of Law and Society, the Journal of International Dispute Settlement, and Arbitration International, among others.
- International Arbitration
- Macau Civil Procedure and Commercial Law
- Gaming Law
- Law and Technology (AI and Dispute Resolution)
- PhD in Law (DPhil), Faculty of Law, University of Oxford
- Master in Legal Research (MSt), Faculty of Law, University of Oxford
- Master in Law, Faculty of Law, University of Coimbra
- Bachelor in Law, Faculty of Law, University of Coimbra
- Beijing International Arbitration Commission (BIAC), Beijing, China
- Hengqin International Commercial Mediation Center (HICMC), Zhuhai, China
- Centro de Arbitragem Comercial (CAC), Lisboa, Portugal
- Centro de Arbitragem Administrativa (CAAD), Lisboa, Portugal
- Centro de Arbitragem, Conciliação e Mediação (CACM), Maputo, Mozambique
- Qualified Lawyer, Portuguese Bar Association (Portugal)
- Executive Editor, Macau Journal of Global Legal Studies
- Editorial Board Member, Boletim da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Macau
- Peer Reviewer for multiple Journals and Publishers
Grants as PI or Co-PI totalling circa 1,500,000 MOP, including:
- Principal Investigator, Multi-Year Research Grant: Research Services and Knowledge Transfer Office, UM, 2026
- Co-Investigator, Grant from the People’s Supreme Court on the reform of Macau Civil Procedure, 2025
- Co-Investigator, Grant from the British Academy: International Writing Workshops, 2024
- Principal Investigator, Multi-Year Research Grant: Research Services and Knowledge Transfer Office, UM, 2023
- Co-Investigator, Asia-Pacific Academy of Economics and Management Research Grant, 2023
- Principal Investigator, Grant from the Higher Education Fund, Macau SAR Government, 2022
- Principal Investigator, Academic Research Grant from the Institute of European Studies of Macau, 2021
- Principal Investigator, Start-Up Research Grant: Research Services and Knowledge Transfer Office, UM, 2020
- Principal Investigator, Research Grant from the Worshipful Company of Arbitrators, London, UK, 2018
Over 40 academic publications and contributions, in English and Portuguese, including:
Books:
- Moreira, J. I., (2025), Dispute Resolution in Macau: Civil Procedure, Arbitration and Mediation, Hong Kong: LexisNexis.
- Moreira, J. I., (2024), The Regulation of International Commercial Arbitration: Arbitrators’ Duties and the Emerging Arbitral Market, London: Hart Publishing.
Articles:
( * ) Indicates Corresponding Author
I. On International Dispute Resolution & Socio-Legal Studies
- Moreira, J. I.*, Xu, K. & Ma, Z., (2026), Regulating Arbitration Through Criminal Law: An Empirical Exploration of the Criminal Prosecution of Arbitrators in Mainland China, in Law & Social Inquiry, 1-14. (SSCI/SCOPUS)
- Moreira, J. I.* & Lin, S., (2025), Effective or Symbolic? A Retrospective Look at the Performance of the China International Commercial Court, in Asia Pacific Law Review, 33(1), 1-23. (SSCI/SCOPUS)
- Moreira, J. I., (2022), Arbitration vis-à-vis other Professions: A Sociology of Professions Account of International Commercial Arbitrators, in Journal of Law and Society, 49(1), 48-70. (SSCI/SCOPUS)
- Moreira, J. I., (2022), The Insider/Outsider Divide and the Ethics of Commercial Arbitrators, in Manchester Journal of International Economic Law, 19(2), 132-154. (ESCI/SCOPUS)
- Moreira, J. I.* & Vecellio Segate, R., (2021), The ‘It’ Arbitrator: Why Do Corporations Not Act as Arbitrators?, in Journal of International Dispute Settlement, 12(4), 525-557. (SSCI/SCOPUS)
II. On Law, Technology, and the Future of Justice
- Migliorini, S. & Moreira, J. I.*, (2026), Clashing Frameworks: The EU AI Act and Arbitration, in European Journal of Risk Regulation, 17(1), 140-160. (ESCI/SCOPUS)
- Moreira, J. I.* & Zhang, J., (2025), ChatGPT as a Fourth Arbitrator? The Ethics and Risks of Using Large Language Models in Arbitration, in Arbitration International, 41(1), 1-14. (SCOPUS)
- Migliorini, S. & Moreira, J. I.*, (2025), The Case for Nurturing AI Literacy in Law Schools, in Asian Journal of Legal Education, 12(1), 7-24. (SCOPUS)
- Moreira, J. I.* & Zhang, L., (2024), Assessing Credibility in Online Arbitration Hearings: Determining Facts and Justice by Zoom, in International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 37(3), 887-901. (ESCI/SCOPUS)
- Moreira, J. I. & Zhang, J., (2024), The Use of Technology by Courts in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau: Increasing Efficiency in Dispute Resolution in the Greater Bay Area, in Tsinghua China Law Review, 16(2), 171-190. (ESCI/SCOPUS)
III. On Macau Law, Gaming, and Regional Integration
- Moreira, J. I.* & Zhou, Y., (2026), Macao’s Gaming Transformation: Policy, Law, and the End of Junkets, in China: an International Journal, 24(1), 87-114. (SSCI/SCOPUS)
- Robalo, T. L. A. S., Leong, C. H. & Moreira, J. I.*, (2026), Experiences in Bilingual Legal Education: The Case of Macau SAR’s Chinese-Portuguese Bachelor of Law, in Asian Journal of Legal Education, 13(1), 19-29. (SCOPUS)
- Moreira, J. I.* & Zhou, Y., (2025), Deposits in Macau’s Casinos: Joint liability of concessionaires for gaming promoters’ actions, in Gaming Law Review, 29(2), 34-41. (ESCI)
- Moreira, J. I.* & Ma, Z., (2023), The Arbitrability of Corporate Disputes in Macau: Searching for Answers Under a New Law, in Contemporary Asia Arbitration Journal, 16(1), 69-96. (ESCI)
- Moreira, J. I.* & Li, R. Z., (2022), Macau Gaming Operators and the Pandemic: Corporate Social Responsibility is Changing, in Gaming Law Review, 26(1), 335-340. (ESCI)
Book Chapters:
- Moreira, J. I., (2026), Macau: Commercial Dispute Resolution and Arbitration, in Sarah Biddulph and Kathryn Taylor (eds.), Elgar Encyclopaedia of Asian Law, Edward Elgar Publishing (forthcoming).
- Moreira, J. I., (2025), The Arbitrator: Re-establishing trust in a changing arbitration landscape, in Audley William Sheppard and Chiann Bao (eds.), ICCA Congress Series No. 22 (Hong Kong): The Arbitrator: A Human Endeavour, Wolters Kluwer, 53-62.
- Moreira, J. I., (2020), The Limits to Voluntary Arbitration in Establishing a Fair, Independent and Accessible Dispute Resolution Mechanism Outside Large Contractual Disputes, in Leonardo V.P. Oliveira and Sara Hourani (eds.), Access to Justice in Arbitration, Wolters Kluwer, 59-74.
- Pinto Monteiro, A.P. & Moreira, J. I., (2020), The Arbitration Tribunal, in André Pereira da Fonseca et al. (eds.), International Arbitration in Portugal, Wolters Kluwer, 81-95.
Professor Moreira welcomes research proposals focusing on his areas of research interest. Candidates are welcome to e-mail preliminary proposals prior to submission of an official application.