Yue Cao

Yue is a DPhil in Law candidate at Jesus College, University of Oxford. His doctoral research, generously sponsored by the Clarendon Scholarship and supervised by Professor Antonios Tzanakopoulos, focuses on the legality of unilateral economic measures under the principle of non-intervention. His research interests lie broadly in a number of areas of public international law, including general international law, international law and armed conflicts, international dispute settlement, and international environmental law.

Prior to his DPhil, Yue completed his LLB at Koguan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), graduating 1st out of his cohort. He then obtained his MJur (Distinction, awarded the Clifford Chance Prize for the Best Performance in the MJur) and MPhil in Law (Distinction) degrees from the University of Oxford.

During his studies, Yue has served multiple roles in international legal research and practice, including as a research assistant at SJTU, Oxford, Cambridge, the International Law Commission, and a leading international law chambers in London. He taught the undergraduate course Public International Law as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Oxford during the 2025–26 academic year, and was a co-convenor of the Chinese Law Discussion Group from 2023 to 2026. Yue will work as a Sir Ian Brownlie Judicial Fellow at the International Court of Justice in 2026–27.

Apart from the Clarendon Scholarship, Yue has received a variety of other scholarships and awards, such as the 2025 China Oxford Scholarship, the 2023 Chinese Rhodes Scholarship Finalist, the 11th Han Kun Youth Legal Scholarship, Chinese National Scholarship (twice), the Dean’s Scholarship at Koguan Law School, the Bruce Reynolds Prize for Best Performance in the BCL/MJur, the 2022 CLECSS-Fangda Overseas Legal Scholarship, the Shanghai Municipal Scholarship, the Tang Lixin Scholarship, and the Chun-Tsung Scholarship, etc.