In 2017 he published the monograph Green Trade and Fair Trade in and with the EU: Process-based Measures within the EU Legal Order (Cambridge University Press). The monograph is about extraterritorial environmental and social protection under the EU internal market rules.

Laurens holds a Ph.D. in EU law from VU University Amsterdam (2015). He has taught EU external relations law and EU law at the Brussels School of International Studies of the University of Kent and at VU University Amsterdam. He previously worked at ClientEarth, an environmental law organisation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, and in private practice in Brussels. Laurens studied at the University of Groningen and at the College of Europe in Bruges (2008-2009).