Dr Gavin Sullivan

Reader in International Human Rights Law

BA/LLB (Hons); PhD (cum laude)
Solicitor, Senior Courts of England and Wales

Email: g.sullivan@ed.ac.uk

View my publications

Gavin Sullivan joined Edinburgh Law School in February 2021 as Reader in International Human Rights Law. He was previously a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Kent (2016 – 2020) and was awarded his PhD (cum laude) from the University of Amsterdam. Gavin’s research focuses on the politics of global security law, technology and rights using socio-legal and ethnographic methods. His research interests include international organisations and collective security; algorithmic governance, accountability and international human rights; transnational and informal law, global governance; counterterrorism and preemptive security. In 2020 Gavin was awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) for his socio-legal research project, Infra-Legalities: Global Security Infrastructures, Artificial Intelligence and International Law (2021 – 2028).  He leads an interdisciplinary team of scholars to examine how AI-led security, and the data infrastructures that sustain it, are reshaping global security law, rights and accountability and security decision-making. His book - The Law of the List: UN Counterterrorism Sanctions and the Politics of Global Security Law (Cambridge University Press, 2020) – was awarded the 2021 International Studies Association STAIR Book Award for research bringing science and technology studies into dialogue with global politics, and the 2021 International Studies Association ILAW Book Award for research that makes an outstanding contribution to the field of international law. 

Gavin is a practicing solicitor with advocacy experience in public law, environmental law, international human rights and security law. Since 2010 he has provided pro bono representation to people targeted by security lists worldwide, including before the UN Office of the Ombudsperson. Gavin has worked widely as an expert consultant on counterterrorism and security issues, including for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as civil society organisations. He is a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), Co-Director of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs (SCGA), member of the UKRI FLF Development Network  Advisory Group and UKRI FLF Review Panel, and member of the Editorial Board for the journal, Transnational Legal Theory. Gavin is also a Senior Research Affiliate at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) Centre for Technomoral Futures, member of the EFI Critical Data Studies Cluster, Co-lead for the College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (CAHSS) Research Theme on Governance and Democracy, and active member of the University of Edinburgh Senate.   

He has previously been a Visiting Fellow at the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University and a Visiting Scholar at UNSW Faculty of Law and Justice.

Twitter: @g_sullivan