Charlotte Hafstad

Charlotte Hafstad is CELIS Country Reporter for Norway.

Charlotte Hafstad is an associate lawyer at Bing Hodneland business law firm, and currently writes her PhD in screening of foreign direct investments at the University of Oslo, faculty of law. The PhD is part of the COINS-Reasearch project (Consequences of Investments for National Security) at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, where an interdisciplinary research team investigates how liberal open societies reap the benefits of open economies, but at the same time protect their legitimate security interests.

Charlotte has 14 years of experience working for the Norwegian government, including from the secretariat of the Norwegian Oil Fund`s Council on Ethics, where she conducted investigations of multinational corporations involved in gross corruption and human rights abuses. She then worked as a lawyer in the Norwegian Armed Forces and supported the operational activities through legal advice relating to cyber, technology, privacy and security law. Since 2020, she has worked as a lawyer at Bing Hodneland law firm, where she advises clients on national security laws and regulations, cyber and privacy, as well as foreign direct investment screening rules.

Charlotte has a master`s degree in law from the University of Oslo, specializing in WTO law, corporate law and international humanitarian law from the Humboldt University in Berlin. She also has a master's degree from the War department at King's College in London with a specialization in state`s handling of international security threats such as terrorism, espionage etc. She wrote her dissertation under the supervision of Sir David Omand.