Academic staff

Dapo Akande is also Yamani Fellow at St. Peter's College and Co-Director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC). He is the current Convenor of the Oxford Law Faculty's Public International Law Group. In 2008/09 he was Visiting Associate Professor and Robinna Foundation International Fellow at Yale Law School. In 2002 and 2009, he was Visiting Professor at the University of Miami School of Law. From 1998 to 2000, he was Lecturer in Law at the University of Nottingham School of Law and from 2000 to 2004 he was a Lecturer in Law at the University of Durham. From 1994 to 1998, he has taught (part-time), first at the London School of Economics  and then at Christ's College and Wolfson College, Cambridge.

He has varied research interests within the field of general international law and has published articles on aspects of the law of international organizations, international dispute settlement , international criminal law and the law of armed conflict. His articles have been published in leading international law journals such as the American Journal of International Law, the British Yearbook of International Law and the European Journal of International Law . His article in the Journal of International Criminal Justice on the "Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over Nationals of Non-Parties: Legal Basis and Limits" was awarded the 2003 Giorgio La Pira Prize.

Dapo has advised States and international organizations on matters of international law. He has advised and assisted counsel or provided expert opinions in cases before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, international arbitral tribunals, WTO and NAFTA Dispute Settlement Panels as well as cases in England and the United States of America. He has acted as Consultant for the African Union on the international criminal court and on the law relating to terrorism. He has also provided training on international law to diplomats, military officers and other government officials.

In addition to being editor of EJIL:Talk! (the blog of the European Journal of International Law), he is a member of the boards of a number of journals, academic and professional organizations, including:
the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Journal of International Law;
the Editorial Board of the African Journal of International and Comparative Law;
the Advisory Council of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law;
the Executive Council of the British Branch of the International Law Association; the Advisory Board of the International Centre for Transitional Justice and
the Advisory Committee of International Lawyers for Africa.

Frank Berman QC joined the Faculty in 2000 as Visiting Professor in International Law on his retirement from the post of Legal Adviser to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

During a full career in the Diplomatic Service, he served in Berlin, Bonn and at the UN in New York, conducted cases before the International Court of Justice and arbitral tribunals and took part in numerous international negotiations, culminating in leading the British Delegation to the International Conference that drew up the Statute of the International Criminal Court.

He came to Oxford to read law as a Rhodes Scholar and is an Hon. Fellow (now Fellow) of Wadham. He practises at the Bar in public international law and international arbitration. He is a member of numerous committees in the legal field, including the Advisory Councils of the Institute for European & Comparative Law and of the Oxford University Law Foundation, and is a member of the Editorial Board of the British Year Book of International Law.

His research interests lie principally in the law of treaties, the use of force, settlement of disputes, international humanitarian law and the law of international organizations. He is preparing a Second Edition of Lord McNair's classic work on The Law of Treaties, and chairs the International Law Association's Committee on the Accountability of International Organizations. He serves on the Staff Tribunal of the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund and has been appointed Chairman of the Austrian National Committee to supervise the compensation of victims of Nazi persecution.

Janina Dill's research focuses on international law in war, specifically its philosophical foundations and normative scope. She currently studies moral agency and individual legal responsibility in combat operations. Do the choices that individual agents at different levels of the chain of command face match the assumptions about moral agency underlying the law that criminalizes unlawful attack?

Janina is also currently working on turning her DPhil thesis into a book. This project investigates from an interdisciplinary point of view whether air warfare can be effectively regulated by international law. Each part of the project makes an original contribution to a contemporary debate in one of three fields: international humanitarian law, international relations theory and practical ethics.

Furthermore, she is interested in and has previously worked on the emergence and demise of states in international law and the legal and political challenges associated with state failure, state building and self-determination.

Dr Nancy Eisenhauer's main research interest is in international law, including public international law and international dispute resolution. Serves as a private consultant to States and other entities involved in international commercial arbitration and/or investor-State arbitration. Nancy Eisenhauer specialises in public international law and international dispute resolution and, when not teaching, acts as a private legal consultant in primarily investor-State, treaty-based arbitrations. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago and its Law School, where she served as a Bigelow Teaching Fellow immediately upon graduation. More recently, she served as an Attorney-Adviser for the U.S. Department of State. Prior to joining the State Department, she practised domestic and international litigation and arbitration at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

Dr Nazila Ghanea is University Lecturer in International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Kellogg College (BA Keele, MA Leeds, PhD Keele, MA Oxon). She was the founding editor of the international journal of Religion and Human Rights and now serves on its Editorial Board as well as the Advisory Board of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion. She has been a visiting academic at a number of institutions including Columbia and NYU, and previously taught at the University of London and Keele University, UK and in China. Nazila’s research spans freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression, women’s rights, minority rights and human rights in the Middle East. Her publications include nine books, three UN publications as well as a number of journal articles and reports. Her research has been funded by the Open Society Institute, the UK Arts and Humanities Research Board and the UK Economic and Social Research Council. She has been invited to address UN expert seminars on four occasions. She is currently part of a research term investigating ‘Religion and Belief, Discrimination and Equality in England and Wales: Theory, Policy and Practice’ (2010-2013). She has also received a number of university scholarships and academic awards. Nazila has acted as a human rights consultant/expert for a number of governments, the UN, UNESCO, OSCE, Commonwealth, Council of Europe and the EU. She has facilitated international human rights law training for a range of professional bodies around the world, lectured widely and carried out first hand human rights field research in a number of countries including Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. She is a regular contributor to the media on human rights matters. This coverage has included BBC World Service, BBC Woman’s Hour, The Times, Radio Free Europe, The Guardian, Avvenire, The Telegraph, The National (UAE), New Statesman, Sveriges Radio, TA3 Slovakia and El Pais.

Professor Guy S. Goodwin Gill is also Professor of International Refugee Law, was formerly Professor of Asylum Law at the University of Amsterdam, and served as a Legal Adviser in the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) from 1976-1988. He practises as a Barrister from Blackstone Chambers, London, and he has written extensively on refugees, migration, international organizations, elections, democratization, and child soldiers; Recent publications include/ The Refugee in International Law/, (OUP, 2007), 3rd edn. with Dr Jane McAdam; /Free and Fair Elections/, (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2nd edn., 2006); /Basic Documents on Human Rights/, (OUP, 2006), 5th edn., with Ian Brownlie, eds.

LL.M. (Harvard Law School), BA (Oxon). Miles is a Departmental Lecturer in Law and a College Lecturer at St Anne's College. His doctoral research, supported by a Rhodes Scholarship, is on complicity in international law. He teaches European Human Rights Law at the faculty and Constitutional Law and Administrative Law for St Anne's College.

Miles is a former clerk of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and a former chair of Oxford Pro Bono Publico.

Mark Janis is a Visiting Fellow at the Law Faculty and a Fellow Commoner at The Queen's College, where he studied law as a Rhodes scholar. He has also been Reader in Law for the Faculty and a Law Fellow at Exeter College. He is William F. Starr Professor of Law at the University of Connecticut School of Law where he teaches International Law and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He has written a number of scholarly articles and several books including The American Tradition of International Law (OUP 2004), International Law (Aspen 5th ed. 2008), International Law Cases and Commentary (with J.E. Noyes, West 3d ed. 2006), and European Human Rights Law (with R.S. Kay & A.W. Bradley, OUP 3rd ed. 2008).

Vaughan Lowe QC is Emeritus Chichele Professor of Public International Law and a Fellow of All Souls College.

He was formerly Reader in International Law and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College in the University of Cambridge; and before that he taught at the universities of Cardiff and Manchester and, as a visiting professor, in the USA. He practices as a barrister from Essex Court Chambers, London. He has advised governments and corporations on matters of international law, and is the author of many books and articles on the subject, of which the most recent are The Law of the Sea (3rd ed., MUP, 1999; with Robin Churchill),The Settlement of International Disputes (OUP, 1999; with John Collier), and International Law (OUP, 2007). He was appointed QC in 2008.

Link to Public International Law @ Oxford.

Gregory Messenger is a Junior Research Fellow in Law at the Queen's College where he completed his DPhil and BCL degrees. He read law as an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh with a year at the University of Granada, Spain. 

He has previously taught general public international law, international economic law and international investment law at the Universities of Oxford and Durham as well as introductory courses in English law at the University of Granada.

His research examines the development of WTO in light of transnational influences, specifically in the context of trade defence instruments and SPS measures. His research interests are principally in public international law, international economic law, trade-related aspects of US and EU constitutional law and theoretical approaches to international economic law. 

Nicola Palmer is the Junior Research Fellow in Global Justice at St Anne's College and convenor of Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR), an inter-disciplinary network of University staff and students working on issues of transition in societies recovering from mass conflict and/or repressive rule. Her current research focuses on criminal justice in post-genocide Rwanda, examining the interactions among international, national and localised criminal courts. She was an American Society for International Law Helton Fellow in 2009 and was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship in 2007. She completed her undergraduate and honours degrees in law and economics at Rhodes University, South Africa.

Martins Paparinskis, LLB (University of Latvia), MJur (Dist, Clifford Chance Prize), MPhil (Dist), DPhil, MA (Oxon), is a Junior Research Fellow at Merton College. He was recently a Hauser Research Scholar at the New York University (2009-2010), and before that tutored as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in Oxford. Martins has varied research interests in the field of general international law. His recent and forthcoming publications mainly address the place of investment protection law and international economic law in the international legal order. 

Anna Russell is the Louwes Fellow at the University of Oxford, where she also teaches an international law course at the Centre for the Environment. She has a DPhil in law from the University of Oxford, a JD from the University of Ottawa, and a BScE(Hons) in environmental engineering from Queen’s University, Canada. She is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada (Barrister and Solicitor). Over the last decade and a half, Anna has worked on environmental and development projects in Bolivia, Peru, South Africa, Germany, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. She has undertaken legal consultancy work for various international organizations, government departments and NGOs. With a particular focus on development issues, her main areas of interest are international environmental law and international human rights law. Current research projects include an empirical investigation into the integration of human rights into development cooperation, as well as an edited book on the human right to water. At present, Anna is a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law Faculty (Human Rights Programme).

Dan Sarooshi is also a Senior Research Fellow of the Queen's College, Oxford; an FRSA; and co-General Editor of the Oxford Monographs in International Law Series. He was elected in 2008 to membership of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law.

His books include International Organizations and Their Exercise of Sovereign Powers  (OUP, 2005), The UN and the Development of Collective Security (OUP, 1999), and the co-edited State Responsibility Before International Judicial Institutions  (Hart, 2004). The first two of these books have been awarded the 2000 (biennial) Guggenheim Prize by the Guggenheim Foundation in Switzerland; the 2001 American Society of International Law Book Prize; the 2006 Myres S. McDougal Prize awarded by the American Society for the Policy Sciences; and the 2006 American Society of International Law Book Prize.

Professor Sarooshi has co-authored with Judge Dame Rosalyn Higgins FBA, QC, former President of the International Court of Justice, the long chapter entitled ?Institutional Modes of Conflict Management? in National Security Law  (2005) (108 pp.). He is presently co-authoring with H.E. Sir Christopher Greenwood QC of the International Court of Justice the leading work, Oppenheim?s International Law, Peace (10th edition, Oxford University Press) (in preparation).

He was appointed by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2006 to the WTO Dispute Settlement List of Panellists after joint nomination by the United Kingdom Government and the European Communities.

Link to Public International Law @ Oxford

Andrew Shacknove (AB Bowdoin; PhD Yale; JD Harvard; MA, Oxon). University Lecturer in Law and Director of Legal Studies, University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education and Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford.

Formerly a lawyer with UNHCR in Malaysia, Dr Shacknove was for many years a consultant with the United Kingdom Home Office Asylum Division. Between 1990 and 1993 he was Joyce Pearce Research Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

He is Co-Director of the Oxford/George Washington University Summer Programme in International Human Rights Law and Academic Adviser to the Adilisha Project of human rights training in southern Africa.

Special Interests: Public International Law, Human Rights and Forced Migration.

Link to Public International Law @ Oxford

DPhil (Oxf), LLM (NYU) LLM LLB (Athens)

Antonios joined the Law Faculty as University Lecturer in Public International Law in September 2012. He is a fellow of St Anne's College. 

Antonios studied law in Athens, New York, and Oxford, during which time he also worked as a Researcher for the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Athens and New York, and for the UN Office in Geneva. He then took up a position as a Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, with which he remains affiliated, and subsequently at University College London. He has also taught as a visiting Lecturer at King’s College London and the University of Paris (Paris X – Nanterre).

Antonios is an Advocate at the Athens Bar in Greece and has worked on a number of cases before international and domestic courts and tribunals, including the International Court of Justice, EU courts, ad hoc and ICSID arbitral tribunals, and the High Court of England and Wales. 

Jure Vidmar (MA, LLM, Dr phil, PhD) is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Faculty of Law and Research Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. Prior to taking up these posts in 2012, Jure was an Anglo-German Fellow in the Institute of European and Comparative Law, University of Oxford. His previous positions include post-doctoral researcher at the Amsterdam Center for International Law, University of Amsterdam,  and a visiting fellow at the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa, University of Pretoria.

Jure's main research and teaching interests lie within public international law, human rights, European law, and political theory. He has taught and/or supervised at the universities Oxford, Pretoria, Amsterdam and Nottingham. Jure is the author of a monograph entitled 'Democratic Statehood in International Law: The Emergence of New States in Post-Cold War Practice' (Oxford, Hart, 2013) and co-editor (with Erika de Wet) of 'Hierarchy in International Law: The Place of Human Rights' (Oxford, OUP, 2012). He is also an editor of the Hague Yearbook of International Law. Some of his publications are available on SSRN.