Prof. Beneyto is an academic, an international lawyer, a politician and a writer. He studied Law, History, Philosophy and Economics and obtained his J.D. in Spain, an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, and a Ph.D. in Law and Ph.D. in Philosophy and History from the University of Münster (Germany), as well as a Business and Economics Degree from IESE Business School.
He is a Professor of European Law and Politics, International Relations and International Law, a Jean Monnet Chair ad personam of the EU and the Director of the Institute for European Studies in Madrid. He has published extensively on European Union constitutional development, EU foreign policy, energy, telecoms and financial sector regulation, international law, EU political theory, global governance, international organizations and human rights.
He has been practicing law over twenty years, with a focus on corporate law, (M&A), antitrust law and international arbitration. He was also a Civil Servant of the European Institutions and an advisor to the European Parliament, the European Convention, the OCDE and the World Bank. As a politician, he was until 2016 a member of the Spanish Parliament (Spokesman for Foreign Affairs), Vice Chair of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and Chair of its Committee on External Relations.
He has published two novels. “The elements of the world” is a historical novel based on the German jurist and political theorist Carl Schmitt set in the period from 1919 to 1945, and which was a Premio Primavera de Novela finalist in 2009. His second work of fiction, “The spy who fooled Hitler”, appeared in June 2016 and is being translated into various languages. He speaks Spanish, English, German, French and Italian.