Skip to main content

International law experts in our group


Leader(s)

Dr Patricia Hobbs Dr Patricia Hobbs
Email Dr Patricia Hobbs Senior Lecturer in Public International Law
Patricia Hobbs is a Lecturer in Law at Brunel University. Before joining Brunel University, Patricia was Associate Lecturer/GTA at the University of Manchester, and before that she was a teaching assistant at Newcastle Law School. She was awarded a fully funded studentship by the University of Manchester to study for her PhD, successfully defended in 2012. Her doctoral thesis focused on the relationship between the Rome Statute and the principle of state sovereignty, with a particular emphasis on the Kenya situation and the crimes perpetrated following the 2008 elections. Her research and publications focus on the effectiveness of the International Criminal Court in dealing with the complexities arising from the prosecution of international crimes, from the immunity of a sitting President to fair trial procedures. Patricia has been a regular judge in the mooting competitions organised by the Brunel Law Society, and in 2014 she served as a judge in the UK national rounds of the Telders International Law Moot Court Competition. Patricia’s research interests lie in the areas of international criminal law, international human rights law, international public law and international humanitarian law. Her interest in international criminal justice and the never again narrative provide the platform for her research interests, although the reality of international law provides the underlying backdrop for the development and progression of her research. Patricia has a strong interest in evaluating the effectiveness of the International Criminal Court in light of the challenges and limitations posed by the principle of state sovereignty. Moreover, the relatively new criminal justice machinery, established by the Rome Statute regime, is also facing procedural challenges regarding rights of fair trial, an issue that is closely related to the Court’s legitimacy. This is the subject of her next article, ‘The right to fair trial and judicial economy at the International Criminal Court’. State sovereignty The Rome Statute and its implementation by domestic courts Compliance in international law (including rational choice theory) The right to a fair trial Judicial economy Immunity of state officials re: international crimes Jus ad bellum and jus in bello The Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) Gender-based crimes Jus cogens norms (in particular, torture) Undergraduate teaching Criminal Law (Module Convenor) Postgraduate teaching International Criminal Law (Module Convenor) International Humanitarian Law (Module Convenor) Public International Law
Dr Solon Solomon Dr Solon Solomon
Email Dr Solon Solomon Lecturer in Law
Dr Solon Solomon is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Division of Public & International Law at Brunel University London, having established and serving as co-Director of the BUL International Law Group and heading the BUL Emerging Law Voices interview series on YouTube and on Spotify. Former Member of the Knesset Legal Department on international and constitutional issues and holder of the George Weber Award from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he has held visiting positions in a number of academic institutions including King's College London, Humboldt zu Berlin, Tel Aviv University and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. He is currently co-convenor of the International Law Section in the Society of Legal Scholars, covering the United Kingdom and Ireland. Dr Solomon's research lies on the interdisciplinarity between psychology and international law. He is the author of The Justiciability of International Disputes (WLP, 2009) cited before the Permanent Court of Arbitration and co-editor of the volume Applying International Humanitarian Law in Judicial and Quasi-Judicial Bodies: International and Domestic Aspects (TMC Asser Press, 2014), presented in a special event in The Hague by the then serving judges Sir Christopher Greenwood and Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi, the British judge to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court's President. His research has appeared in a number of journals including the Journal of International Dispute Settlement, the Journal of Conflict & Security Law, the Chinese Journal of International Law, the Nordic Journal of International Law and the German Law Journal. He has rendered lectures and talks in various academic venues, most notably at the University of Cambridge, the Harvard Law School, the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University. He sits on the Editorial Board of the Military Law and the Law of War Review, published under the auspices of the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War. Dr Solomon holds a PhD from King’s College London Dickson Poon School of Law, an LLM in Public International Law from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a First-Class Honors Bachelor of Laws from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has extensive media presence, with his views hosted in outlets such as The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The BBC, Newsweek Magazine, The Times, The Financial Times, The Globe & Mail,The Straits Times and Haaretz. Dr Solomon's research interest focuses on how the human rights discourse and particularly socio-economic rights and the right to mental health, can interact with disciplines beyond the legal world, such as psychology and psychiatry. On this account, Dr Solon Solomon is currently researching on the legal assessment of civilian war trauma and the repercussions for the warfare rhetoric and for the laws of war existing framework. Research areas include the interrelation between psychology and human rights law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and refugee law

Members

Dr Elena Abrusci Dr Elena Abrusci
Email Dr Elena Abrusci Senior Lecturer in Law
Elena joined Brunel in 2021 as Lecturer in Law. Prior to that, she worked as a Policy Advisor on Digital Regulation at the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and as a Senior Research Officer at the University of Essex on the ESRC-funded 'The Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project'. Elena has also extensively worked on modern slavery and human trafficking at the Rights Lab of the University of Nottingham and at Walk Free Foundation, contributing to the 2017, 2018 and 2019 editions of the Global Slavery Index. She acted as a consultant for several UN agencies (including WHO, UNESCO and OHCHR), tech companies and governments. Elena has an interdisciplinary background in law and politics and her research focuses on regional human rights systems and the impact of AI and technology on human rights. She holds a PhD in Law from the University of Nottingham, a Master in International Relations and Law from the University of Florence and Sciences-Po Paris, a postgraduate diploma in Politics from Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies (Pisa) and an undergraduate degree in Politics and International Relations from the University of Pisa. Her PhD thesis explored the issues of judicial convergence and fragmentation in International Human Rights Law, looking at the case-law of the African, European and Inter-American human rights court and has been published as a monograph by Cambridge University Press in December 2022. Elena's research interests include: regional human rights systems, their institutional settings and case-law; the impact of emerging technologies and artificial intelligence on human rights, online content moderation with a specific focus on disinformation/misinformation and online hate speech; digital regulation and AI governance. International Human Rights Law Regional Human Rights Systems Digital Regulation and Governance Human Rights & Technology Hate speech and freedom of expression online LX3072 - International Human Rights Law (module convenor) LX1032 - Public Law LX2081 - European Union Law LX3608 - Law, Science and Technology PP3665 - Parliamentary Studies
Dr Louise Forde Dr Louise Forde
Email Dr Louise Forde Senior Lecturer in Law
Louise joined Brunel Law School in September 2020. Her research interests lie primarily in the areas of youth justice and children's rights law. Louise holds a PhD in Law from University College Cork, awarded in 2018. During the course of her PhD, she was awarded a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship from the Irish Research Council, and the President James Slattery Prize in Law from the School of Law in UCC, for her research entitled “’Welfare’ and ‘justice’ in Irish youth justice: A Children’s Rights Analysis of Diverse Approaches to Youth Justice”. She also holds an LLM (Research), LLM (Criminal Justice), and BCL from the School of Law, UCC, and has completed a Higher Diploma in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Between 2018-2020, Louise was a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Children’s Rights and Family Law in the School of Law, UCC, where she also lectured on modules including Child Law, International Human Rights Law and Juvenile Justice. She was a visiting lecturer in Leiden Law School in 2019. She has been published in Youth Justice: An International Journal, and has authored reports for bodies such as Save the Children, the Irish Penal Reform Trust, and other governmental and non-governmental bodies. She recently contributed to the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of their Liberty. She was appointed to the editorial board of Youth Justice: An International Journal in 2019. Louise's primary research interests lie in the area of youth justice and international children's rights law. She is particularly interested in the ways in which international children's rights principles can be used to develop domestic law and policy. She has a keen interest in children's participation, and is interested in conducting research that includes participatory methods with children and which values the contribution that can be made by listening to children's voices and experiences. Youth Justice International children's rights law Implementation of international children's rights principles in domestic law Children's participation Evidence Law Sentencing & Penology Criminal Law Children and the Law
Dr Pin Lean Lau Dr Pin Lean Lau
Email Dr Pin Lean Lau Senior Lecturer in Bio Law
Pin Lean is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Bio-Law at Brunel Law School, joining Brunel University London in January 2021. A former practising barrister and solicitor, she was a corporate-commercial attorney working primarily in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, technology law, and general corporate advisory matters. Prior to joining Brunel University, she was an attorney on secondment with the Legal Services Team (based in Belgrave, London) in the General Counsel's Organization of American Express International, where she was a key senior legal counsel for the Asia-Pacific region. She obtained her SJD in Comparative Constitutional Law from Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, in 2019 (nostrified in the UK in 2020), earning highest honours, Summa cum Laude, for her thesis titled 'Comparative Legal Frameworks for Pre-Implantation Genetic Interventions' (which has been written into a monograph published by Springer Switzerland). Pin Lean is the General Manager of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence: Social & Digital Innovations. She is an active member of the Brunel International Law Research Group, Living Avatars Research Group, the Human Rights, Society and the Arts Research Group, and Reproduction Research Group. Externally, she is part of the ELSI2.0 Workspace, an international collaboratory on genomics and society research; a member of the European Association of Health Law (EAHL), and a General Manager of the Interest Group on Supranational Bio-Law of the EAHL; and a member of the Daughters of Themis: International Network of Women Business Scholars. She has held visiting fellowships with the Centre for Health, Law and Emerging Technologies (HeLEX), NDPH (Medical Sciences Division), University of Oxford; the Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences (CELLs) at the University of Hannover, Germany; and participated in the Centre for Ethics and Law in Biomedicine (CELAB) in Central European University, Hungary. Pin Lean also leads the UK & European chapter of the global Responsible Metaverse Alliance as Director of Research; and is an invited member of the United Nations (UN) International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Working Group on the Metaverse, focusing on competition, economics, standards and regulatory aspects of the Metaverse. Her research encompasses European, international, and comparative law for genome editing (with a focus on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, reproductive technologies and women's bodies; and the proliferation of virulent gene-edited pathogens and global bio-security); propertization and commodification studies of genetic materials and biomedical technologies; the ethico-legal governance for artificial intelligence (AI) systems (with a focus on protection of fundamental rights, spatial 'body citizenship' and bio-constitutional implications of the AI-augmented biological human body, and AI in women's health); and technologies horizon scanning and legal future foresighting for new and emerging technologies and environments, such as the Metaverse. She has written widely on topics straddling the fringes of laws, technologies and society, and has been invited as a speaker by many national and international organisations, including on podcasts relating to technologies, and media interviews with news organisations in the UK, US, France, Germany, Brazil, Hungary, Malaysia, Japan, and India. Recently, she was invited as an expert panelist by the UK regulatory alliance, the Digital Cooperation Regulation Forum (DRCF) in its first Metaverse Symposium. She has also consulted as an expert with the UK Law Society on technologies and horizon scanning in its Future Worlds 2050 Project. Pin Lean previously consulted on a multi-trust funded project for the World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the OiE (World Organization for Animal Health), on developing and piloting of a Tripartite One Health Assessment Tool for Antimicrobial Resistance Relevant Legislation. She also completed a project with researchers from the EAHL to produce a Joint Statement for the European Commission's 2021 Thematic Networks, with a proposal for Health as a Fundamental Value, as part of the EU Pharmaceutical Strategy. She led a project on AI-driven technologies in women's healthcare, funded by the Institute for Communities & Society. Besides this, she is also working on several book projects, including health and IP rights in EU health law, and EU health databases; on the EU Draft Law for Artificial Intelligence and data protection; on AI gender data gap and data feminism; and on FemTech and effective AI stewardship for women's healthcare. She is also a contributor in the EuroGCT Project (European Gene & Cell Therapy Project) funded by the European Commission's Horizon 2020 Work Programme, contributing in the area of data misuse and mission creep in EU health laws relating to patient involvement and patient data. She was the keynote speaker, with the presentation titled 'Hidden Figures: Algorithmic Biases in Health and Medical AI - European Law Perspectives' at the XVI Inter-Autonomous Conference on the Legal Protection of Patients: Science and Data as Ingredients for the Transformation of Healthcare Organisations. She led a European Commission Health Policy Platform project, together with civil society organisation, Health Action International, to produce a Joint Statement and policy recommendations for the European Commission 2022 Thematic Networks, on the impact of artificial intelligence on health outcomes (reducing health inequalities) of marginalised groups in the EU - presenting this report to the European Commission in Luxembourg in April 2023. She currently leads the Stakeholder Network for this project on the EU Health Policy Platform. From August 2023, Pin Lean leads a project (Lex-HMT) focusing on legal and regulatory aspects of immersive biomedical technologies in virtual worlds, and is expected to provide oral evidence to the AI All-Parliamentary Group (AI APPG) in the UK House of Lords in November 2023. Pin Lean's research interests encompass European, international and comparative law for genome editing (with a focus on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, reproductive technologies and women's bodies; and the proliferation of virulent gene-edited pathogens and global bio-security); propertization and commodication studies and debates of genetic materials and biomedical technologies; and the ethico-legal governance of AI systems (with a focus on AI in healthcare, and the protection of individual rights and fundamental liberties in AI, spatial 'body citizenship', and bio-constitutional concerns of the AI-augmented biological human body; and AI, gender data gap and data feminism in women's healthcare); and technologies horizon scanning and legal future foresighting for new and emerging technologies and environments, such as the Metaverse. Bio-constitutionalism and human rights implications of new and emerging biomedical technologies (gene editing, artificial intelligence, 3D organ bioprinting, xenotransplantation, cryo-preservation, reproductive cloning, etc) Bioethics and feminist legal approaches to bioethics European, international and comparative law for genome editing technologies (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and reproductive technologies) Ethico-legal governance of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, particularly AI in healthcare Protection of human rights and fundamental liberties in the Metaverse and Web3.0 Admitted as a Fellow of the HEA (March 2022) Modules Taught:- Contract Law Tort Law Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Law (AI and Health in the Metaverse) Artificial Intelligence, Bias and Power Law, Science, and Technology Studies (genome editing technologies) Bioethics and Biomedical Law
Dr Colin Luoma Dr Colin Luoma
Email Dr Colin Luoma Lecturer in Law
Colin joined Brunel Law School as a Lecturer in 2021. Prior to joining Brunel, he was a Legal Researcher with Minority Rights Group International and a civil litigation attorney working in private practice. Colin earned his PhD in connection with his thesis entitled 'Indigenous Cultural Rights Violations and Transitional Justice in the Settler Colonial State'. His doctoral research analysed the treatment of indigenous peoples’ cultural rights violations in transitional justice initiatives implemented in settler colonial states. More broadly, his research is focused on the intersections between indigenous and minority rights and transitional justice, historical wrongdoing, and environmental justice. Transitional Justice International Human Rights Law Indigenous Rights Minority Rights Environmental Justice Land Law Legal Skills and Method Multiculturalism and Human Rights
Professor Alexandra Xanthaki Professor Alexandra Xanthaki Alexandra is a leading expert on indigenous rights in international law. AMong her several publications, her monograph Indigenous Rights and United Nations Standards: Self-determination, Culture and Land (Cambridge University Press) is considered a reference source on the topic. In 2011 Alexandra co-edited Reflections on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Hart) and most recently, in 2017, Indigenous Peoples' Cultural Heritage (Martinus Nijhoff/ Brill). Her work has been cited repeatedly in United Nations documents and she has given keynote speeches around the world, including the Arctic Centre, Rovaniemi; the KL Bar, Malaysia; Trento, Italy; and London. She has worked closely with the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Issues, the ILO. Currently she is working with Minority Rights Group International on the rights of the Latin American community in the 7sisters re-development in Haringey, London. She has taught civil servants, indigenous leaders and activities in Vietnam, Pretoria, Kyiv, and London. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (University of London). Before she joined Brunel university, Alexandra taught in Keele and Liverpool. She has received the STAR award for her teaching and stduent support. She is a member of the Human Rights Faculty of the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford and has been an external examiner in several law departments, currently at Birkbeck. Since October 2015, Alexandra leads the Athens Refugee Project, where she takes Brunel law students to Athens to volunteer in migrant and refugee sites, provide assistance and learn more on the refugee crisis in Europe from discussions with state authoriites, NGOs and IGOs. She has found invaluable partners in Maria Voutsinou from the Greek Ombudsman for Human Rights and Kenneth Hansen from Faros ('The Lighthouse'), an NGO on unaccompanied minors. Brunel University has received a congratulatory letter from the Greek state for this project. In 2017, Alexandra organised a series of academic multi-disciplinary events on Migrant and Refugee Rights in London (with IALS) and Athens. Qualifications: LLB (Athens); LLM (QUB); PhD (Keele); Lawyer (Athens Bar) International Human Rights; International Minority Rights Student Support As the Director of Research, I am responsible for the strategic direction of the School in relation to staff research activity and research student matters.
Dr Ermioni Xanthopoulou Dr Ermioni Xanthopoulou
Email Dr Ermioni Xanthopoulou Senior Lecturer in Law
Ermioni is a Senior Lecturer in law and Director of Research for Brunel Law School . She is currently teaching EU, migration and refugee law. Her research focuses on (EU) criminal, migration, and asylum law, as well as human rights. Ermioni was granted the Athena Swan Research Award 2022-2023 to conduct her individual research project on externalising trends of asylum law. Together with Dr. Nayyeri, they published evidence that the government's asylum policy was unlauful. Ermioni also participated in ITFLOWS, a three-year long research project funded by European Commission's Horizon 2020, as a member of the BUL team assessing human rights challenges posed by technological tools predicting migration. Moreober, she is the author of 'The European Arrest Warrant in a context of distrust: Is the Court taking rights seriously?'. European Law Journal, pp. 218 - 233. ISSN: 1351-5993 She is also the author of 'Fundamental Rights and Mutual Trust in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: A Role for Proportionality?' published with Hart Publishing in 2020 and of several other publications. Her article, 'Mutual Trust and Rights in EU Criminal and Asylum Law: Three Phases of Evolution and the Unchartered Territory beyond Blind Trust', was awarded the 2017 Common Market Law Review Prize for young academics. Ermioni conducted her doctoral research at King's College London (2012-2017) with a scholarship from the Centre of European Law. Crime, security, migration, asylum, human rights. EU area of freedom security and justice, EU Criminal law, EU asylum and migration law, EU human rights and constitutional law. Publications E Xanthopoulou 'The European Arrest Warrant in a context of distrust: Is the Court taking rights seriously?' (2023) European Law Journal E Xanthopoulou & M Nayyeri 'Written evidence on human rights of asylum seekers' (2022) Parliament Human Rights Joint Committee E Xanthopoulou, ‘Mapping the EU’s Externalisation Devices: Repulsion, Emergency and Neo-coloniality’ (2023) (under peer-review with European Journal of Migration and Law) Ermioni is the author of 2018) 'Mutual trust and rights in EU criminal and asylum law: Three phases of evolution and the uncharted territory beyond blind trust'. Common Market Law Review, 55 (2). pp. 489 - 509. ISSN: 0165-0750 that won the prize for Young Academics in 2017 by the journal. She is also the author of Fundamental Rights and Mutual Recognition in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: A Role for Proportionality (Hart, forthcoming) ‘International Fight against Impunity and EU Counter-Terrorism Law: The Case of Foreign Terrorist Fighters’ co-authored with T. Konstadinides (peer-reviewed chapter for the edited book by Dr. Montaldo and Dr. Marin, The Fight Against Impunity in EU Law 2020, Hart Publishing) ‘Legal Uncertainty, Distrust and Injustice in Brexit Asylum Cooperation’ (peer-reviewed chapter for the edited book by Ahmed and Fahey, On Brexit: Law, Justice and Injustices 2020, Edgar) ‘The quest for proportionality for European Arrest Warrant and fundamental rights protection in a mutual recognition environment’ (2015) New Journal of European Criminal Law32-52 Other "Mutual Trust and Fundamental Rights in the Dublin System: A Role for Proportionality?" Odysseus Blog (2021) 'From mutual trust to mutual distrust in the EU’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice' REAL Blog (2021) 'Brexit spells sliding safeguarding duties' (2019) Britain must commit to upholding civil liberties if the EU is to agree on security co-operation after Brexit (The Conversation, 2018) Radu judgment: A lost opportunity and a story of how the mutual trust obsession shelved human rights (KSLR EU Law Blog, 2013) European Union Law Migrant, State and the Law Refugee Policy and Practice
Dr John Macmillan Dr John Macmillan
Email Dr John Macmillan Senior Lecturer in International Relations
The inter-disciplinary nature of International Relations has, for me, always been one of the most stimulating features of the subject. Whilst IR has long professed a strong core narrative of what distinguishes the field the most interesting work in the subject combines insights from a range of disciplinary traditions, whether History, Philosophy, Law, Political Economy, or Political Theory. It is this interdisciplinary character that enables a particularly rich analysis of the ‘big’ questions that IR addresses. For example, in the final year of my own undergraduate study I was struck by the proposition that stable liberal democracies rarely if ever went to war against each other. My subsequent research in this area combined the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, critical insights from Marxist inspired traditions, and a strong historical – or empirical – interest in specific interstate relationships culminating either in heightened conflict or the creation and maintenance of peaceful relations. More recently I have been interested in the question of liberal state ‘intervention’ and in particular variation and trends in intervention over time. This has involved engaging with historical sociological and post-colonial perspectives as well as more established traditions within the discipline such as the English School ‘international society’ tradition. In this respect, matters of contextualisation and perspective are as important for allowing an individual to see the world in its richness and complexity as they are for understanding why it is that the members of international society frequently see the world in very different ways. Qualifications: DPhil International Relations (Oxford) BA International Relations (Keele) I am interested in history and theory of both the particular peace-proneness and the use of force by liberal states (democracies). Initially the focus of this interest was on the Democratic Peace proposition but more recently the focus has been more on liberal state intervention. Democratic peace Liberal state peace / war Military intervention International relations theory Undergraduate Programmes Module convenor Globalisation and Governance (Yr 3) Postgraduate Programmes Programme convenor MA International Relations Module convenor Evolution of International Relations War in Politics: Democracy, War and InterventionDissertation and Research Skills in International Relations Administration Part-time Staff Liaison Coordinator

Associate members

Dr Steven Wagner Dr Steven Wagner
Email Dr Steven Wagner Senior Lecturer in International Security
I am an historian of intelligence, security, empire and the modern Middle East. Before coming to Brunel, I was a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow in the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University, Montreal. I received my DPhil from the University of Oxford, and my BA and MA from the University of Calgary. Since 2007, I have been looking at records declassified records in the UK, USA, and Israel which shed new light on the story of the Palestine Mandate, but also on the previously unknown role of intelligence in countering terrorism & insurgency, and in shaping British policy. Qualifications: DPhil – University of Oxford MA – University of Calgary BA – University of Calgary Broadly speaking, my research covers the relationship between intelligence, state and society, and how intelligence services influenced the emergence of the Modern Middle East. Since 2007, I have studied declassified records in the UK, USA, and Israel which shed new light on the story of the Palestine Mandate, but also on the previously unknown role of intelligence in countering terrorism & insurgency, and in shaping British policy. Specifically, he has focused on how intelligence shaped Britain's thirty year rule in Palestine, and its impact upon the Arab-Zionist conflict. intelligence and security british empire the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict strategy & policy