I am Assistant Professor (universitair docent) of International Relations and International Law at Leiden University and a Research Associate at the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Constitutional Law and Legal Studies. Until recently, I was a Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, and a Senior Research Fellow at Policy Exchange‘s Judicial Power Project.

My research is broadly comprised of two strands. Within international relations, I am interested in the relationship between international law and the international order in a historical perspective, particularly in the non-Western world. My most recent research project on the nature of sovereignty in China during the Republican Era (1911–1949). I am also interested in Constructivist and English School international relations theory. I am currently working on two new projects: the first on the relationship between international law and the extinction of states, and the second one on the notion of “decoupling” within international relations.

My work has won the Barbara W. Tuchman Prize for Best Paper in Historical International Relations by a Graduate Student and the English School Junior Scholar Award from the International Studies Association, as well as the Asian Society of International Law Young Scholar Prize.

The second strand of my research is situated within public law and political history. I am interested in the constitutional law of the United Kingdom and of the Commonwealth, and particularly the nature of judicial power within these constitutions. My coedited volume (with Richard Johnson), Sceptical Perspectives on the Changing Constitution of the United Kingdom, makes the case for the fundamental soundness of the United Kingdom’s traditional constitutional arrangements.

I am legal columnist at The Critic and a regular book reviewer for The Times. I was previously Canada columnist at ConservativeHome. Among the other publications I write for are The Mekong Review, The National Post, The Spectator, The Telegraph, The Times, and Unherd. My work has been cited in the British, Canadian, and French parliaments, as well as by media on every continent.