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Biography
Dr Matthew Windsor is Associate Professor in Public International Law at the University of Nottingham School of Law. He is currently the Co-Director of Postgraduate Teaching, with convenorship responsibilities for the Master of Laws (LLM), and convenor of the International Law Association seminar series. He is a member of the Nottingham International Law and Security Centre, the History of Law and Governance Centre, and the Human Rights Law Centre.
Matthew holds a BA/LLB(Hons) from the University of Auckland, and was admitted to the New Zealand Bar. He completed an LLM at Columbia University (James Kent Scholar), where he was awarded the David W Leebron Human Rights Fellowship. He then received his PhD from the University of Cambridge as recipient of the WM Tapp Studentship at Gonville & Caius College.
Before joining the University of Nottingham, Matthew was a Junior Research Fellow in International Law at the University of Oxford, and a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Law at the University of Reading. While at Reading, Matthew was the School Director of Postgraduate Research, member of the University Board for Research and Innovation, and recipient of the RUSU Teaching Excellence Award for Law.
Prior to entering academia, 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 United Nations Human Rights Committee. In New York, he undertook a Fellowship at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics and interned for the Vice Chair of the United Nations Committee Against Torture. In New Zealand, he worked as judge's clerk to Justice Grant Hammond at the Court of Appeal of New Zealand.
Expertise Summary
Matthew's recent research has largely focused on the role and responsibilities of lawyers in the executive branch of government, from the perspective of public and international law. The contribution of his scholarship to the field of public law has been praised for raising 'deep theoretical questions about the ethical significance … of distinctions between the public and private spheres': Professor Peter Cane in Public Law. His scholarship has also been commended as a leading example of how 'systematic research' on international lawyers is 'just beginning in legal studies [and] the sociology of law': Crafting the International Order (OUP 2021).
He has delivered training to government lawyers in the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, the Cabinet Office, and Ministry of Defence, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, and Australia's Attorney-General's Department and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Teaching Summary
Matthew currently convenes International Law and the Global Economy (LLB) and Critical Approaches to International Law (LLB). At the University of Nottingham, he has also contributed to teaching… read more
Research Summary
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.
Matthew 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 (under contract with Oxford University Press), which offers a conceptual framework to evaluate and critique the practice of government legal advisers in international law. The monograph is based on his PhD thesis at the University of Cambridge, which was supervised by Professor David Feldman and Judge James Crawford, and examined by Professor Martti Koskenniemi and Professor Eyal Benvenisti.
His forthcoming research explores the constitutional dimensions of international economic regulation through the prism of 'policy space.'
He would be happy to supervise PhD students in his areas of expertise. Information about the School of Law PhD programme and how to apply can be found here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/law/study/postgraduate-research/index.aspx
Recent Publications
MATTHEW WINDSOR, 2022. Expertise as Framing. In: PAIVI LEINO-SANDBERG and EMILIA KORKEA-AHO, eds., Law, Legal Expertise and EU Policy-Making Cambridge University Press.
MATTHEW WINDSOR, 2021. Counterstorytelling in International Economic Law. In: ANDREA BIANCHI and MOSHE HIRSCH, eds., International Law's Invisible Frames: Social Cognition and Knowledge Production in International Legal Processes Oxford University Press. MATTHEW WINDSOR, 2019. The Special Responsibility of Government Lawyers and the Iraq Inquiry British Yearbook of International Law. 87(1), 159 MATTHEW WINDSOR, 2017. Consigliere or Conscience? The Role of the Government Legal Adviser. In: JEAN D'ASPREMONT, TARCISIO GAZZINI, ANDRE NOLLKAEMPER and WOUTER WERNER, eds., International Law as a Profession Cambridge University Press.
Matthew currently convenes International Law and the Global Economy (LLB) and Critical Approaches to International Law (LLB). At the University of Nottingham, he has also contributed to teaching International Investment Law (LLM), The World Trading System (LLM), International Human Rights Law (LLM) and Public Law (LLB).
At the University of Reading, Matthew taught modules in international trade and WTO law, and international investment law and arbitration. At the University of Cambridge, he taught administrative law, civil liberties and human rights, and ethics and world politics for the Faculty of Law and the Department of Politics and International Studies.
He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, with a particular interest in decolonial pedagogy.
Matthew is an external examiner at the University of Glasgow.