Welcome to the latest interview of the Völkerrechtsblog’s symposium ‘The Person behind the Academic’! With us we have Prof. Kathryn McNeilly, and through the following questions, we will try to get a glimpse of her interests, sources of inspiration and habits.
Welcome Prof. McNeilly and thank you very much for accepting our invitation!
May I first ask what it was that brought you to academia and what made you stay?
Similar to many academics, I did not set out intentionally to become one. After studying my law degree, I undertook a Masters with a focus on human rights law. Throughout both I was drawn to legal research and how it could help to learn about law or examine it from new angles. I very much enjoyed being able to think through and design research papers and questions. When the opportunity later arose for a PhD scholarship it offered me a path to pursue this further and, serendipitously, coincided with a period when I was working in a fixed-term job that was coming to an end. This was the start of my academic journey.
What encouraged me to stay in academia is much the same as what brought me to it in the first place – the ability to think through and follow lines of inquiry, to open ideas up, and to engage with a diversity of perspectives. Over a decade later, these are the things that I continue to appreciate about what I do each day. I also value the ability to create my own career path and to take time to focus on different questions, aspects of law, or different parts of my profile at different times. It is a career that is always in motion.
If you were not an academic, what would you be?
If I were not an academic, I would most likely have worked in a legal research or policy role. This was the route I had planned before the opportunity for PhD study arose. For me, this offered the ability to engage similar research and analytical skills, albeit in different ways and in contexts that are distinct from academia.
How did your research interest in international legal theory arise?
Initially I was not consciously focused on either legal theory or international law. While my work always engaged theoretical tools, my interest in the former developed in earnest when my PhD supervisor offered me the opportunity to tutor on the undergraduate Legal Theory module that she was convening. I found this a very enjoyable experience, one that I learned a lot from and that drew my attention to the rigour and utility of theoretical approaches.
My interest in international law, particularly public international law where my research is located, arose from my work on human rights. In the contemporary context it is not possible to study human rights in isolated national or regional perspective, international law is the backdrop against which analysis must take place. I found the international legal system to offer a fascinating landscape for thinking through questions of worldwide significance.
Which are three texts that you would wish all academics working on international law would read?
Looking at my bookshelves, physically and digitally, it is difficult to select just three texts. What comes to my mind are three types of texts that I believe can enrich thinking on international law.
The first relates to work that has, on my reading, advanced important frameworks or ideas through which international law can be understood. Here I would include writing such as Hilary Charlesworth’s ‘International Law: A Discipline of Crisis’ (2002) 65(3) Modern Law Review 377 and Edith Brown Weiss’s Establishing Norms in a Kaleidoscopic World (Brill: Leiden, 2020). I see these as useful in offering footholds for lawyers across traditions and subsets of law to discuss the legal system in new ways. They also continue to resonate in the contemporary context.
The second group of texts are collaborative projects that provide insights into previously under-examined phenomena within international law. These include Fleur Johns, Richard Joyce and Sundhya Pahuja (eds), Events: The Force of International Law (Routledge: London, 2010), Jessie Hohmann and Daniel Joyce (eds), International Law’s Objects (OUP: Oxford, 2018) and Helmut Philipp Aust and Janne E. Nijman (eds), Research Handbook on international Law and Cities (Edward Elgar: Cheltenham, 2021). Such works have been fruitful in articulating the material and wider contextual forces that shape international law.
Third, I would recommend international lawyers to develop a practice of reading outside the discipline. This includes in the adjacent areas of international relations and political science, but also in broader disciplines like political theory, philosophy and the humanities. I would not like to limit suggestions to specific texts here, but can say that such reading has enrichened my thinking in many ways.
What is your favourite place to read and write? What is always near you when you read and write?
I like to write in my office or at a quiet desk elsewhere. I enjoy travel for writing when I can and find that a change of physical environment can often stimulate the writing process. When writing I usually have a notepad and pen, some water, as well as books and notes nearby.
Reading for me can look the same as this, but when possible I like to read away from my laptop or computer and, ideally, have a coffee in hand too.
What is an energy and inspiration booster, at times when you have none?
I find speaking with colleagues about research to be energising and inspiring. This can be a chance meeting in the corridor that leads to discussion of ongoing projects, or a more in-depth encounter with work in progress at a seminar. This close engagement with ideas often helps to stimulate my thinking, reading and writing.
I also find taking time to rest – both physically, as well as to rest a piece of writing for a period – an effective way to bring fresh energy.
Have you ever drawn influence from any form of art in your work? Is there anything artistic about teaching or writing academic texts?
Writing and teaching in academia are inherently creative processes. In this respect, parallels exist between art and academic work. Given the creative underpinnings of what we do as academics, I believe that when we write it is possible to be intentional about drawing insights from artistic and broader creative contexts.
One example that often comes to my mind is fiction writing. Writers in this literary genre must develop the skill of telling a story with words; must consider closely how their writing engages their audience; and must cultivate the discipline of writing and, crucially, rewriting. Academic writers can, I think, benefit from taking steps to cultivate similar skills. Legal academic writing is not just an output of research, but a skill to hone, a habit and a way of communicating with audiences. More broadly, similar to the benefits of reading outside our home discipline, reading fiction can enrichen the thinking of academic writers and the ability to communicate through writing.
Which of your publications is your favourite one? And which of them is your least favourite?
Reflecting on your own work in this way is challenging. Generally speaking, the publications I am fondest of are those that have facilitated a significant new idea and have allowed me time and space to engage with this idea deeply.
My recent writing has explored the connections between international human rights law and time. One article where I began to think this through is ‘The Temporal Ontology of the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review’ (2021) 21(1) Human Rights Law Review 1. This work draws a distinction between this monitoring process existing in time and being constituted by time, expanding on the multiple, complex and often paradoxical temporalities that drive the review. I see this piece as my first substantive thesis in the area.
Another publication I am particularly fond of is a collection edited with Dr Ben Warwick: The Times and Temporalities of International Human Rights Law (Hart: Oxford, 2022). This work represents not only the thinking through of an emerging area, but the experience of doing so collaboratively. The dialogues and insights stimulated by it have continued to resonate and have helped take me in fruitful research directions.
Like other authors, my less favoured publications may change over time. Publications are both static, a snapshot of thinking and writing at particular moments, and our reading of them ebbs and flows.
If you could, which advice would you give to yourself at the early stages of your career?
I would encourage myself to read widely. Engaging with a broad range of ideas and different perspectives helps us to learn more and sharpen our analytical skills. This is something I have learned from experienced colleagues and is a piece of advice that I am conscious to continue to implement.
Beyond this, I would encourage thinking about the academic career as something that unfolds over an extended period of years and decades. This requires longer-term thinking, planning – as much as is possible – and an openness to how your thinking and skills will develop and evolve.
Have you experienced or witnessed discrimination in academic circles? How have you reacted to these instances?
Like other sectors, academia is not immune to problems of this nature and must remain vigilant. I was fortunate early in my career to be part of Athena SWAN work which assesses gender equality in departments and institutions and plans steps to enhance this. This helped me consider how it is possible to improve in this area, both individually and collectively, and provided insights that I continue to draw from in everyday academic life. There is no straightforward answer, but I am hopeful that such initiatives are opening discussions on equality, diversity and inclusion, including beyond gender alone, and that these discussions will continue to expand to meet the work that remains to be done.
Ideally, whom would you want to find waiting for a meeting with you outside your office next Monday?
I very much enjoy meeting with PhD students and always welcome this as a way to start the week. It is a pleasure to make contact with a student considering or beginning a PhD who is passionate about adding something new to international law, human rights, legal theory or history. Equally, I find it invigorating to meet with my existing PhD students and see the development of their thinking as part of their unique academic journeys.
What are you working on currently? What may we anticipate in the near future?
Presently I am working on several projects. The first involves exploring international human rights bodies via time. This draws from interdisciplinary resources to investigate the significance of temporality in this specific part of international human rights law’s infrastructure. Alongside this, I am continuing my work on the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review. This examines the review process as a lens and reflects on what it assists us to see about human rights.
Finally, I am contributing to a collaborative project on global legal theory, led by Professor Luis Eslava and Dr Daniel Ricardo Quiroga-Villamarín. In this, I investigate the UN’s second World Conference on Human Rights which took place in Vienna during 1993. I explore the relationship between individual geographical locations, the global plane, and time woven together during the Conference and in subsequent years. This aims to contribute to understandings of international legal activity at the intersection of time and space.
Thank you very much, Prof. McNeilly, for participating in our symposium and for having taken the time to respond to our questions!
Thank you very much for the invitation.
Kathryn McNeilly is Professor of Law at Queen’s University Belfast School of Law. Her research interests include public international law, international human rights law, international legal theory and the history of international law.