Full Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon (FDUL). With Aggregation (2007) and Doctorate (1998) in Legal-Economic Sciences, Master's Degree in Historical-Legal Sciences (1990) and Degree in Law from the Portuguese Catholic University (1982), he has supervised numerous Master's and Doctorate theses, as well as Post-Doctoral internships in Portugal and Brazil. Lecturer and guest speaker at Faculties in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia, he participates in Conferences regularly and has published in the areas of Economic Analysis of Law, Philosophy of Law, History of Law, Law of Obligations, Contracts, Civil Law, Environmental Economics, Bioethics and Animal Law. He was a founding member of several institutes at the University of Lisbon and also of the Research Centre for Private Law, where he was responsible for the Bioethics Law section. He chaired the Assessment and Accreditation Committees of Law Schools and Courses in Portugal (A3ES – Higher Education Assessment and Accreditation Agency) (2011-2016) and the FDUL Institute of Brazilian Law; he directed the Revista do Instituto do Direito Brasileiro, he was a member of the Ethics Committees of the Faculty of Medicine (2005-2007) and the Faculty of Pharmacy (2010-2017), was Deputy to the Office of the Minister of the Presidency (1990-95) and Advisor to the Office of the Secretary of State for National Defense ( 1995) and Advisor to the Board of Directors of the Securities Market Commission (1998).
Between 2004 and 2005, he chaired the Scientific Council of the Centre for the Study of Animal Rights and also collaborated with the Centre for Biomedical Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra. His book "A Hora dos Direitos dos Animais" (2003) drove a change in legal thinking and stimulated the national debate in relation to animal issues. Two years after the release of this work, he wrote an article titled “Os recentes desenvolvimentos da Lei Portuguesa no domínio dos direitos dos animais” which was published in the Journal of Animal Law, whose editorial board he also integrates.
He is Director of the Revista Jurídica Luso-Brasileira and co-coordinates Almedina's "Applied Ethics" collection.
He has extensive experience in Arbitration, being an Arbitrator in tax and commercial cases, as well as a Legal Consultant and Advisor.