Ewan Smith

Biography

Dr Ewan Smith is the Shaw Foundation Junior Research Fellow at Jesus College. He is an Associate at the Bonavero Institute for Human Rights, the Programme for the Foundations of Law and Constitutional Government and the Oxford University China Centre.

Ewan read law at Brasenose College (B.A., DPhil) at the University of Paris, at Peking University and at Harvard Law School (LL.M.). He has previously taught at SOAS and at Tsinghua and Renmin Universities in China. In 2019, he was a Visiting Fellow at the National University of Singapore. He is admitted to practice in New York, where he worked for Debevoise and Plimpton LLP. Before returning to Oxford, he spent ten years at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Ewan’s work looks at how rules govern powerful institutions, with a focus on foreign relations law and comparative public law. His doctorate compared the unwritten constitutions of Britain and China. His research over the next two years will examine how the constitution regulates political parties, how Parliament scrutinises treaties, and how foreign policy is subjected to public law.

Ewan teaches Constitutional Law, Administrative Law and Jurisprudence (FHS) and Constitutional Theory (BCL).