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 publicationsGavin Sullivan joined Edinburgh Law School in February 2021 as Reader in International Human Rights Law. He was previously a Senior Lecturer at Kent Law School (2016 – 2020) and was awarded his PhD (cum laude) from the University of Amsterdam. Gavin’s research focuses on law and technology, the transformative effects of AI and algorithmic governance, infrastructural geopolitics, and global security and human rights, using socio-legal and ethnographic methods. His wider research interests include international organisations and collective security; AI governance and accountability; human rights; transnational law and global governance; multilateral and unilateral sanctions; counterterrorism and mobility governance; and the regulatory effects of global security, data, and legal infrastructures.
Gavin leads the socio-legal and interdisciplinary UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) project, Infra-Legalities: Global Security Infrastructures, Artificial Intelligence and International Law. This research examines how AI and automated decision-making is transforming global security law and governance, focusing on the countering of terrorist and violent extremist content online, digital border governance and terrorist watchlisting. His first 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 making an outstanding contribution to the field of international law. His research on UK algorithmic border governance (with Dimitri Van Den Meerssche, Queen Mary University London) was shortlisted for the 2026 Socio-Legal Studies Association Article Prize. His second book, Global Governance by Data: Infrastructures of Algorithmic Rule, co-edited with Fleur Johns (University of Sydney) and Dimitri Van Den Meerssche is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Gavin’s research has been published in leading journals including the Journal of Law and Society, German Law Journal, Transnational Legal Theory, the International Journal of Law in Context and the London Review of International Law. He is currently co-editing (with Darryl Li, University of Chicago) an interdisciplinary symposium of the Yale Journal of International Law on the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA) for publication in 2027.
Gavin is admitted to legal practice as a solicitor in England and Wales. He has legal advocacy experience in public law, environmental law, human rights (UK, EU and international) and global 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 and with the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Gavin has worked widely as an expert consultant on security, technology and human rights issues, including for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and a range of UK and international civil society organisations. He is currently co-Vice-Chair of the International Advisory Committee of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), along with the Government of Australia, and is on the management team of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs (SCGA). His research frequently engages with policymakers, including inside government and technology companies
Gavin is active in research leadership roles. He is Co-Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Law in Context, Co-Editor of Critical Studies on Security, and on the Editorial Committee of Transnational Legal Theory. He is a member of the UKRI Talent Peer Review College; a Senior Research Affiliate at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) Centre for Technomoral Futures; and a member of the EFI Critical Data Studies Cluster. From 2026 – 2029, Gavin is co-coordinating the interdisciplinary Global and Legal Ordering Standing Section at the annual European International Studies Association (EISA-PEC) conference.
He has previously been a Visiting Fellow at the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University, and a Visiting Scholar at the MOBILE Centre for Global Mobility Law at the University of Copenhagen Faculty of Law, and the UNSW Faculty of Law and Justice.
Gavin is open to supervising PhD researchers and supporting postdoctoral researchers whose research interests are interdisciplinary, critical and that engage the areas discussed above.
