Philippa Webb is Professor of Public International Law at the Blavatnik School of Government. She is a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.
Her research interests span all of Public International Law, with particular expertise in international dispute settlement, human rights, international organizations law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. She has been described as “the foremost expert on state immunity”. Her approach is to engage in comprehensive, often collaborative, research that informs and improves decision-making and contributes to better outcomes for the international community. Her current research concerns how national and global justice systems can support flourishing societies and uphold fundamental rights.
Philippa has extensive experience in international and national courts, with prior roles including Special Assistant and Legal Officer to Judge Rosalyn Higgins GBE QC during her Presidency of the International Court of Justice and legal adviser to the Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. She is a barrister at Twenty Essex and appointed to the UK Attorney-General’s Public International Law Panel of Counsel. She regularly appears as counsel and advocate before the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, the International Tribunal For the Law of the Sea, inter-State arbitral tribunals and the UK Supreme Court.
Her publications include: Freedom of Speech in International Law (2024, chapters on insulting speech and false speech, Amal Clooney & Lord David Neuberger KC, eds), The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law (2021, with Amal Clooney) Oppenheim’s International Law: United Nations (2017, with Dame Rosalyn Higgins GBE KC, D Akande, S Sivakumaran and J Sloan), The Law of State Immunity (2015, with Lady Fox KC), International Judicial Integration and Fragmentation (2012, 2015). Her research has been funded by the British Academy, the Balzan Foundation, UNESCO, and the Nuffield Foundation and has been used by the United Nations to develop training for trial monitors around the world. Her scholarship been cited by the leading national courts in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia and South Africa and has twice been awarded the top prize in international law publishing – the American Society of International Law’s Certificate of Merit.
Philippa was previously Professor of Public International Law at King’s College London and founding Co-Director of the Centre for International Governance and Dispute Resolution. She has held visiting positions at Columbia University, the Graduate Institute in Geneva, the Vienna Diplomatic Academy and Université Paris Nanterre. In 2023, she was the Director of Studies (English speaking section) of the Hague Academy of International Law for its centenary edition.
Philippa is a founding Board Member of the Clooney Foundation for Justice. She is a member of the Public International Law Advisory Panel of the British Institute of International & Comparative Law, an advisor to the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States, a legal expert to the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law, an advisor to the Tokyo International Law Seminar, and a member of a working group of the Committee of Legal Advisers on Public International Law of the Council of Europe. She has served on the Task Force on Accountability for Crimes Committed in Ukraine and the Governing Board of the European Society of International Law.
Philippa speaks to the media on issues of international law and co-hosts the EJIL: Talk! Podcast. She serves on the editorial boards of the International & Comparative Law Quarterly, the Leiden Journal of International Law, the Journal of International Criminal Justice, the Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law and the Oxford University Undergraduate Law Journal.
Philippa holds a doctorate (JSD) and an LLM from Yale Law School. She obtained the University Medal in her LLB and the University Medal and First Class Honours in her BA (Asian Studies – Advanced Japanese Studies), both of which were awarded by the University of New South Wales in Australia.
Selected publications and articles
Right to a Fair Trial in International Law (OUP 2021) (with Amal Clooney)
The Right to a Fair Trial under Article 14 of the ICCPR: Travaux Préparatoires (OUP 2021) (ed., with Amal Clooney)
Oppenheim’s International Law: United Nations (OUP 2017) (with Dame Rosalyn Higgins GBE KC, Dapo Akande, Sandesh Sivakumaran, and James Sloan)
International Judicial Integration and Fragmentation (OUP 2015)
The Law of State Immunity (3rd rev edn, OUP 2015) (with Lady Hazel Fox KC)
The Genocide Convention: The Travaux Préparatoires (Martinus Nijhoff 2008) (with Hirad Abtahi)
Human Dignity and International Law (Brill 2020) (edited with Andrea Gattini and Rosana Garciandia)
‘Insulting Speech’ in Amal Clooney and David Neuberger (eds), Freedom of Speech in International Law (OUP, 2024) (with Dario Milo and Rosana Garciandia)
‘False Speech’ in Amal Clooney and David Neuberger (eds), Freedom of Speech in International Law (OUP, 2024) (with Marko Milanovic)
‘State Immunity' in Malcolm Evans (ed), International Law (Oxford University Press 2024, and previously 2018)
Editor (with Rishi Gulati), Special Issue on the Legal Accountability of Transnational Organisations, King’s Law Journal(2023)
‘The UN’s work on racial discrimination: achievements and challenges’ (2023) Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 216 (with Rosana Garciandia)
‘The Persistent Relevance of the travaux préparatoires of the Genocide Convention’, in Reflections on International Law, Studies in Honour of Lindy Melman (Tim McCormack, ed.) (Brill, 2023)
‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ in Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein and Jared Genser (eds), Oxford Handbook on the United Nations Human Rights System (OUP 2023, forthcoming) (with Kirsten Roberts Lyer)
‘The ICJ and other Courts and Tribunals: Integration and Fragmentation’ in Kate Parlett, Carlos Esposito and Callista Harris (eds), The Cambridge Companion to the International Court of Justice (CUP 2023)
‘The EU: Unifying or fragmenting force in international law?’ in Andrea Biondi and Giorgia Sangiulo (eds), The EU and the Rule of Law in International Economic Relations: An Agenda for Enhanced Dialogue (Elgar, 2021), chapter 1
‘Litigation before the International Court of Justice during the Pandemic’ (2021) Leiden Journal of International Law 1-14 (with Giulia Pinzauti)
‘The United Kingdom and the Chagos Archipelago Advisory Opinion: Engagement and Resistance’ (2021) 21 Melbourne Journal of International Law
‘Non-justiciability and Act of State in Commercial Matters: Exceptions to State Immunity: Section 3 of the State Immunity Act’ [2021] Journal of Business Law 192
‘“I demand justice. I hold them all responsible” Advancing the Enforcement of Anti-Slavery Legislation in Mauritania’(2020) 5(1) Journal of Modern Slavery 1 (with Rosana Garciandia and Maeve Ryan)
‘Forum non conveniens: A comparative perspective’ in Thomas John, Rishi Gulati and Ben Kohler (eds), The Elgar Companion to the Hague Conference on Private International Law (Edward Elgar 2020), chapter 29
‘Migrant Women at Risk of Domestic Servitude: Protecting their Human Dignity with International Law’ in Andrea Gattini, Rosana Garciandia and Philippa Webb (eds), Human Dignity and International Law (Brill 2020), chapter 12 (with Rosana Garciandia)
‘State Responsibility for Modern Slavery: Uncovering and Bridging the Gap’ (2019) 68(3) International & Comparative Law Quarterly 539 (with Rosana Garciandia)
‘Judicial Review of Qualifications Made by Receiving States and Host States of International Organisations’ in Tom Ruys, Nicolas Angelet and Luca Ferro (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Immunities and International Law (CUP 2019), chapter 32
‘Forum non conveniens: Recent developments at the intersection of public and private international law’ in Chiara Giorgetti and Natalie Klein (eds), Resolving Conflicts in the Law: Essays in Honour of Lea Brilmayer (Brill 2019), chapter 5
‘How far does the systemic approach to immunities take us?’ (2018) 112 American Journal of International Law Unbound 116-121
‘A Moving Target: The Approach of the Strasbourg Court to Immunity’ in Anne Van Aaken and Iulia Motoc (eds), The European Convention on Human Rights and General International Law (OUP, 2018), chapter 13
‘Escalation and Interaction: International Courts and Domestic Politics in the Law of State Immunity’ in Marlene Wind (ed.) International Courts and Domestic Politics (CUP 2018) 206
‘Secrets and Surprises in the Travaux Préparatoires of the Genocide Convention’ in Margaret M. deGuzman and Diane Marie Amann (eds), Arcs of Global Justice: Essays in Honour of William A. Schabas (OUP 2018) (with Hirad Abtahi)
‘The International Court of Justice in the Leiden Journal: A Retrospective’ (2017) 30 Leiden Journal of International Law571 (with Jason Morgan-Foster and Giulia Pinzauti)
‘The Right to Insult in International Law’ (2017) 48(1) Columbia Human Rights Law Review 1 (with Amal Clooney)
‘Effective Parliamentary Oversight of Human Rights’ in Matthew Saul, Andreas Føllesdal and Geir Ulfstein (eds), The International Human Rights Judiciary and National Parliaments: Europe and Beyond (2017), chapter 2 (with Kirsten Roberts Lyer)
‘The functional immunity of State officials from foreign jurisdiction’ (2015) Questions of International Law 43
Foreword, Symposium on ‘Culture on the Frontline: Addressing Attacks on Cultural Heritage’ (2016) 14 Journal of International Criminal Justice 1139
‘The Immunity of States, Diplomats and International Organizations in Employment Disputes: The New Human Rights Dilemma?’ (2016) 27(3) European Journal of International Law 745
‘British Contribution to the Law of State Immunity’ in Robert McCorquodale and Jean-Pierre Gauci (eds), British Influences on International Law, 1915-2015 (Brill 2016), chapter 8
‘A British Perspective on the War and Military Forces Clause of the Japanese Constitution’ (2015) 2 King’s Law Journal299
‘Institutional Modes of Conflict Management’ in J. Norton Moore, F. Tipson, and R. Turner (eds), National Security Law and Policy (Carolina Academic Press 2015) (with Dame Rosalyn Higgins GBE QC and Dan Sarooshi)
‘Regional Challenges to the Law of State Immunity’ in Mary Footer and Mariano Aznar-Gómez (eds), Select Proceedings of the European Society of International Law (2015)
‘Deadlock or Restraint? The Security Council Veto and the Use of Force in Syria’ (2014) 19(3) Journal of Conflict and Security Law 471
‘Should the 2004 UN Convention on State Immunity be a model or starting point for a convention on the immunities of international organizations?’ (2014) 10(2) International Organizations Law Review 319
‘Individual Criminal Responsibility’ in Amal Alamuddin, Nidal Nabil Jurdi and David Tolbert (eds), The Special Tribunal for Lebanon: Law and Practice (OUP 2014), chapter 6
‘International Organisations: Uneasy Analogies’ in Christian Tams, Antonios Tzanakopoulos and Andreas Zimmermann (eds), Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Edward Elgar 2014) 567
‘The Use of Force and the Emerging International Judicial System’ in Andrew Byrnes, Mika Hayashi and Chris Michaelsen (eds), International Law in the New Age of Globalization (Martinus Nijhoff, 2013) 121
Introduction to Special Issue on the Crime of Aggression: Tenth Anniversary Edition (2012) 10 Journal of International Criminal Justice 1 (with Claus Kress)
‘Human Rights and the Immunities of State Officials’ in Erika de Wet and Jure Vidmar (eds), Hierarchy in International Law: The Place of Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2012), chapter 5
‘Immunities and Human Rights: Dissecting the Dialogue in National and International Courts’ in André Nollkaemper and Ole Fauchald (eds), The Practice of International and National Courts and the (De-)Fragmentation of International Law (Hart 2012), chapter 11
‘Binocular Vision: State Responsibility and Individual Criminal Responsibility for Genocide’ in Carsten Stahn and Larissa van den Herik (eds), The Diversification and Fragmentation of International Criminal Law (Martinus Nijhoff 2012), chapter 3
‘Expanding Jurisdiction over War Crimes under Article 8 of the ICC Statute’ (2010) 8 Journal of International Criminal Justice 1219 (with Amal Alamuddin)
‘Accountability for Torture Abroad and the Limits of the Act of State Doctrine: Comments on Habib v. Commonwealth of Australia’, (2010) 8 Journal of International Criminal Justice 1153 (with Ben Batros)
‘International criminal courts and tribunals: complementarity and jurisdiction’ in Rüdiger Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Public International Law (Max Planck 2006, revised 2010) (with Morten Bergsmo)
‘Some Lessons for the ICC from the International Judicial Response to the Rwandan Genocide’ in Zachary Kaufman and Phil Clark (eds), After Genocide: Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond(Columbia University Press and Hurst 2009) (with Morten Bergsmo)
‘Scenarios of Jurisdictional Overlap among International Courts’ (2006) 19(2) Revue québécoise de droit international277
‘The International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s Discretion Not to Proceed in the “Interests of Justice”’ 2005) 50 Criminal Law Quarterly 305
‘The United Nations Convention against Corruption: Global Achievement or Missed Opportunity?’ (2005) 8 Journal of International Economic Law 191
‘Paths to Peace: Experiments in Post-Conflict Justice in East Timor’ (2004) Conflict Resolution Journal 41
‘The Inconvenience of Liability: The Doctrine of Forum non Conveniens in International Environmental Litigation’ (2001) 6 Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law 377
