Our People

Dino Kritsiotis

Dino Kritsiotis is Co-Director of NILSC and a Professor of Public International Law in the University of Nottingham, where he chairs the Programme on International Humanitarian Law of the Nottingham International Law and Security Centre. Professor Kritsiotis specialises in international humanitarian law, the use of force as well as the history and theory of public international law.

He is the co-editor, most recently, of Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (Cambridge University Press, 2018), and presented his lecture on "intervention by consent" at the Fourth Trialogue of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany, in November 2018.

Christy Shucksmith-Wesley

Dr Christy Shucksmith-Wesley is Co-Director of NILSC and is a socio-legal researcher with expertise in the provision of humanitarian assistance and protection during and after conflicts and disasters. Christy’s monograph ‘The International Committee of the Red Cross and its Mandate to Protect and Assist: Law and Practice’ (Hart, 2017) led to a number of research projects focussing on the role of the Red Cross in the provision of health care. Christy is a member of several established networks, including the Emergency Planning Society, and is currently developing a Disaster Law Network.

Edward Goodwin

Edward Goodwin is Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is a graduate of the University of Oxford (BA (Hons)) and the University of Nottingham (LLM, PhD), and held a visiting position as a Grotius Research Scholar at the School of Law, University of Michigan, in 2015. His research interests include international environmental law, the law of the sea, and international heritage law.

He has published in a number of journals and edited collections in these fields, including the Journal of Environmental Law, the Colorado Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, and The Oxford Handbook on the Law of the Sea (OUP, 2015). He was also co-editor of (with Michael Bowman and Peter Davies), and a contributor to, the Research Handbook on Biodiversity and Law (Edward Elgar, 2016), and is the author of International Environmental Law and the Conservation of Coral Reefs (Routledge, 2011).

Natalie Hodgson

Dr Natalie Hodgson is an Assistant Professor in Law at the University of Nottingham. Natalie's research interests include state responses to irregular migration and the legality of border policing measures under international law. Her doctoral thesis, ‘Offshore Processing Torture: State Crime, Resistance and International Criminal Law’ examined the legality of Australia’s offshore detention of asylum seekers under international criminal law. More generally, Natalie is interested in state crime and how harmful state practices can be challenged and resisted through international law.

Victor Kattan

Bio to follow.

Scarlett McArdle

Bio to follow.

Hemi Mistry

Dr Hemi Mistry is an Assistant Professor in the School of Law. Her research interests lie in the realm of the theory and practice of international adjudication, with a specific focus on international criminal justice institutions and the International Court of Justice. She has a particular interest in interdisciplinary approaches to the understanding of the role and function of international courts and tribunals in the international order, and her current research looks at how international judicial authority is constituted through language and ritual.

More broadly, Hemi's research focuses upon how aspects of judicial procedure and practice in international courts and tribunals affects the manner in which these institutions deliver upon their mandates. She is currently working on her monograph ‘Rebellious Jurisprudence: Judicial Dissent and International Law’, which is under contract with Hart.

Aoife Nolan

Aoife Nolan has been Professor of International Human Rights Law at the University of Nottingham School of Law since 2012. She was elected to the Council of Europe's European Committee of Social Rights, Europe’s leading economic and social rights monitoring mechanism, in November 2017. In 2018, she served on the Scottish First Minister’s Advisory Group on Human Rights Leadership. She has published extensively in the areas of human rights and constitutional law, particularly in relation to economic and social rights, children's rights and non-state actors. She was the founding coordinator of the Economic and Social Rights Academic Network, UK and Ireland (ESRAN-UKI).

Professor Nolan has acted as an expert advisor to a wide range of international and national organisations and bodies working on human rights issues, including UN Special Procedures, UN treaty-monitoring bodies, the Council of Europe, multiple NHRIs and NGOs. Her books include Children’s Socio-economic Rights, Democracy and the Courts (Hart, 2011), Applying an International Human Rights Framework to State Budget Allocations: Rights and Resources (Routledge, 2014) (with O’Connell, Harvey, Dutschke and Rooney), Economic and Social Rights after the Global Financial Crisis (CUP, 2014) and The United Nations Special Procedures System (co-edited with Freedman and Murphy). She has held visiting positions at numerous academic institutions in Europe, Africa, the US and Australia. She is an Academic Expert member at Doughty Street Chambers.

Marianthi Pappa

Dr Marianthi Pappa possesses a diverse background in legal practice and academic research. She holds an LLB from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, as well as an LLM in Oil and Gas Law and a PhD, both from the University of Aberdeen. Marianthi specialises in international law of the sea, energy and investment law, and space law. She is particularly interested in the place of private actors in the international plane, and the interplay between different areas of law.

Before joining academia, she practiced law in Greece and Cyprus. She also delivers workshops to governmental and business organisations on boundary disputes and energy law.

 Klara Polackova Van der Ploeg

Dr Klara Polackova Van der Ploeg is an Assistant Professor in the School of Law, specialising in international law and international dispute settlement. Her research explores transformations of international law with respect to collective non-state entities; international legal regulation of global coordination problems; and international law in domestic courts.

She is also a dual-qualified attorney-at-law and has advised States and private parties on a wide range of public international law and international dispute settlement matters. She served as a law clerk to Judge Sir Christopher Greenwood at the International Court of Justice and practiced public international law for several years with leading global law firms in the City of London, United Kingdom, and Prague, Czech Republic.

Nigel D. White

Professor Nigel D. White is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Nottingham, formerly Professor of International Law at the University of Sheffield. He is sole author of The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security (Manchester University Press, 1990); Keeping the Peace (Manchester University Press, 2nd edn 1997), The UN System: Toward International Justice (Lynne Rienner, 2002), The Law of International Organisations (Manchester University Press, 3rd edn 2017), Democracy Goes to War: British Military Deployments under International Law (Oxford University Press 2009) and The Cuban Embargo Under International Law: El Bloqueo (Routledge, 2015), and has been co-author and co-editor of a number of other books in the area of international security law. He has published over 75 essays and articles in the area.

He has been a visiting Professor at the the Universities of Utrecht and Uppsala, as well as the Austalian National University, and has worked on projects funded by Nuffield, the EU, the UKFCO, World Justice Project, ABA and the NWO. He was a member of the REF 2014 Law Panel. He has been co-editor of the Journal of Conflict and Security Law (Oxford University Press) since its foundation in 1995.

Matthew Windsor

Dr Matthew Windsor is Associate Professor in Public International Law and Co-Director of Postgraduate Teaching at the University of Nottingham School of Law. He co-convenes the NILSC International Legal Theory discussion group.

 Matthew is a graduate of the University of Auckland (BA/LLB(Hons)), Columbia University (LLM), and the University of Cambridge (PhD). Prior to joining the University of Nottingham, Matthew was a Junior Research Fellow in International Law at the University of Oxford, and a Lecturer in International Law at the University of Reading. Prior to his academic career, Matthew was a litigation associate at the Open Society Justice Initiative in New York City, where he undertook human rights litigation and advocacy before the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee, and a judge’s clerk at the Court of Appeal of New Zealand.

 Matthew’s research interests are in the fields of public international law, international trade and investment law, law and political economy, and law and the humanities. He has published in a variety of leading journals, including the Leiden Journal of International Law and the British Yearbook of International Law, and co-edited Interpretation in International Law (OUP 2015). He is currently writing a monograph titled Advising States: Government Lawyering in International Law.

Rebecca Hall

Rebecca Hall is an ESRC 1+3 doctoral candidate in the School of Law, University of Nottingham. Rebecca’s research, under the supervision of Dr Christy Shucksmith-Wesley and Professor Nigel White, explores the legality of remote and autonomous weaponry under International Humanitarian Law.

Outside of her thesis research, Rebecca also researches in several other areas having recently assisted on research projects in the fields of disaster law and military justice. Rebecca was appointed as a research assistant on an ESRC Impact Accelerator Award in 2021 for a project entitled 'Global Health Emergencies: Lessons for Readiness'. She is also a student assistant on the Journal of Conflict and Security Law and has made her first publication of a book review in the spring edition of the journal in February 2022.

Rebecca holds a first class LLB Law from the University of Lincoln, a LLM in International Law and Global Justice from the University of Sheffield and an MA in Social Science Research (Socio-Legal Studies) from the University of Nottingham.