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).

Daria Davitti

Daria Davitti is Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham, where she also heads the Forced Migration Unit of the Human Rights Law Centre. She is also a research fellow of Lund University, Faculty of Law (Sweden), where she is developing her research project, Liquid Borders. The project examines EU migration policies to interrogate how they contribute to the ‘liquidity’ of the EU border, for instance through externalization, privatization, cooperation with third countries, and development aid. More broadly, her work is concerned with the implementation of international law in complex contexts, such as situations of armed conflict, migration and humanitarian contexts.

Her monograph Investment and Human Rights in Armed Conflict (Hart, 2019) analyses the intersection between international investment law and economic, social and cultural rights from the perspective of business and human rights, as applied to situations of armed conflict. She has published in leading academic journals, including the European Journal of International Law and the Human Rights Law Review, and her work has informed the work of UN Special Procedures.

Before joining academia, Daria worked as a human rights field officer with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), and with various international non-governmental organizations. In autumn 2019 she will be a Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Laureate Program in International Law, Melbourne Law School, led by Professor Anne Orford.

Marko Milanovic

Marko Milanovic is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Nottingham School of Law. He obtained his first degree in law from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, his LLM from the University of Michigan Law School, and his PhD in international law from the University of Cambridge. He is co-editor of EJIL: Talk!, the blog of the European Journal of International Law, as well as a member of the EJIL’s Editorial Board, and was formerly Vice-President and member of the Executive Board of the European Society of International Law. He held visiting professorships at Michigan Law School, Columbia Law School, and the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. He is an Associate of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights and is a professorial research fellow at Deakin Law School. He was Law Clerk to Judge Thomas Buergenthal of the International Court of Justice in 2006/2007.

He has published in leading academic journals, including the European Journal of International Law and the American Journal of International Law; his work has been cited, inter alia, by judges of the European Court of Human Rights and the UK Supreme Court, as well as by the International Law Commission. He was counsel or advisor in cases before the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Constitutional Court of Serbia.

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 internationaal security law. He has published over 75 essays and aricles 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.

Jennifer Giblin

Jennifer is a PGR student at the University of Nottingham. She first joined the School of Law as an undergraduate law student in 2011 when she completed a BA Law degree and then an LLM in Public International Law (Distinction). Under the supervision of Professors Nigel White and Olympia Bekou, her current research examines International Law, Intervention and United Nations Peacekeeping in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Jennifer is also an Editorial Assistant on the Journal of Conflict and Security Law and teaches undergraduate law tutorials on the European Convention on Human Rights.

Sarina Landefeld

Sarina Landefeld is a PGR student at the School of Law, University of Nottingham funded by the AHRC/Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership. Her doctoral research analyses the evolution of the concepts of combatants and non-combatants in international humanitarian law drawing on social constructivism from the discipline of International Relations.

Prior to her PhD studies, Sarina completed an MA in International Relations – Legal Studies (Honours) at the University of Aberdeen and an LLM in Public International Law (Distinction) at the University of Nottingham

Naomi Lott

Naomi Lott is an ESRC funded Doctoral Candidate in the School of Law, University of Nottingham. She holds an LLM in Human Rights Law (Nottingham), an MA in Socio-Legal and Criminological Research (Nottingham), and a BScEcon (Hons) in International Politics and The Third World (Aberystwyth). From 2017, Naomi has worked as a Research Associate with the Rights Lab and the Global Slavery Index project, in partnership with the Walk Free Foundation. Since March 2018, Naomi has Convened the Women’s Rights module for the Human Rights Law Centre’s Distance Learning Course. Naomi is an Editorial Assistant for the Human Rights Law Review.

Naomi has conducted research on human trafficking, the impact of anti-trafficking campaigns, and modern slavery legislation. Her current research examines the child’s right to play, providing foundational work on the concept, implementation and enforcement of the right. Her research interests also extend to economic, social and cultural rights.

Daniela Mendez

Daniela is a Chilean lawyer and academic specialized in Public International Law, Transitional Justice and Human Rights. She holds an LLM in Public International Law and a PhD in Law from the University of Nottingham.

Her PhD thesis was supervised by professors Nigel White and Sandesh Sivakumaran titled ‘Transitional Justice and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Contributions and Challenges from a Latin American Perspective.’ Currently, she is an academic at the University Santo Tomás, in Viña del Mar, Chile.