Welcome! I am a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in International Relations at the University of St Andrews. I was the founding co-director of the Centre for Global Law and Governance and continue to sit on the Steering Committee of the Institute for Legal and Constitutional Research. I am a member of the St Andrews Centre for Exoplanet Science and a Fellow of the Outer Space Institute, a global network of transdisciplinary space experts. I am also a member of the management team of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs, the first all-Scotland institute focusing on non-partisan and policy-relevant academic research on global politics and foreign policy.
My research explores the interaction of international law and political power in shaping outcomes in global politics. Theoretically, I examine how actors strategically engage with international institutions and how norms and legal rules in turn shape and constrain future policy choices in often unanticipated ways. I explore these dynamics principally in the fields of arms control and disarmament (“conventional” and space weapons), international humanitarian and criminal law (International Criminal Court), and the governance of outer space activities. My teaching is informed by this research agenda and spans IR theory, international organisations and law, security, and justice.
I was previously a SSHRC Canada Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations and Non-Stipendiary Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford (2013-15), and a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy (2012-13). I hold a PhD in Political Science from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
A copy of my current CV can be downloaded below: