MEET:
Prof Nehal Bhuta
Nehal is a leading scholar and adviser in public international law with special interests in international humanitarian law, international criminal law, human rights, statehood, immunities and the law of international organisations. He is world-leading expert in the regulation of artificial intelligence in armed conflict.
Nehal is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Edinburgh and a leading scholar and adviser on international humanitarian law, human rights, statehood and the regulation of artificial intelligence in armed conflict.
He holds the established Chair of Public International Law at the University of Edinburgh, where he is Founding Director of the Edinburgh Centre for International and Global Law and Programme Director of the LLM in International Law. He previously held the Chair of Public International Law at the European University Institute in Florence (2012–2018), where he was also co-director of the Academy of European Law. He has held visiting professorships at the University of Melbourne Law School, Peking University Law School, the Catholic University of Leuven/Louvain, the University of Toronto, and the University of Vienna.
Nehal’s subject-matter expertise spans statehood and recognition, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and the law of international organisations, with a specialism in the international law applicable to artificial intelligence and autonomous systems in warfare.
He combines this academic authority with over twenty-five years of experience as a legal adviser and advocate, beginning as a judicial clerk to the Hon. Justice Anthony North of the Federal Court of Australia and an articled clerk at Mallesons Stephen Jaques, and continuing through more than a decade of human rights and international criminal law practice, including as a researcher and Special Advisor on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism at Human Rights Watch.
Nehal has undertaken legal advisory work for the UK Ministry of Defence and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, concerning international humanitarian law and the use of artificial intelligence in armed conflict. He was commissioned as an expert drafter of the revised Chapter 9 (Civilians in the Hands of a Party) of the UK’s Joint Service Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict, and has advised the FCDO on frameworks for strategic stability relevant to military uses of AI. In 2023–2025 he served as a Commissioner on the Global Commission on Responsible AI in the Military Domain, an initiative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, working alongside lawyers, computer scientists and military officials to produce a Strategic Guidance report presented to the UN Security Council in September 2025.
His earlier advisory and advocacy work includes acting as expert legal adviser to counsel in Nulyarimma v Thompson, the leading Australian case on the domestic status of the crime of genocide and the reception of customary international law into the common law, and advising counsel on the international law governing the nationality of refugee applicants from East Timor. As a solicitor, he represented refugee applicants before the Federal Court of Australia and the Refugee Review Tribunal and provided pro bono assistance to unrepresented asylum seekers in immigration detention in Melbourne. He advised East Timorese and Indonesian human rights organisations on international criminal law matters and undertook international law and transitional justice advisory work in Iraq for the International Centre for Transitional Justice and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
At Human Rights Watch, he represented the organisation as an observer at the Iraqi High Tribunal in Baghdad, in amicus curiae proceedings before the Supreme Court of Canada concerning a Canadian minor detained at Guantánamo Bay, and as counsel in the 2008–2010 Iacobucci Inquiry into the treatment of Canadian citizens detained and tortured in Syria following the transmission of questions by Canadian intelligence services. He has also provided an advisory opinion for an international organisation on the withdrawal of a member state from its constituent treaty.
Nehal is admitted as Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia.
Nehal holds an LL.M. in International Legal Studies from New York University School of Law (Hauser Global Scholar), an M.A. in Political Science from the New School for Social Research (where he was a Fulbright Scholar), and a Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne, where he was ranked first in his graduating class and was awarded the Supreme Court Prize and the EJB Nunn Scholarship. He was a member of the University of Melbourne’s Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot team, winning the World Championship Cup and the Best Oralist award at the World Championship round in Washington, D.C.
He has taught across public international law, human rights, international humanitarian law, and international legal theory at the University of Toronto, the New School for Social Research, the European University Institute and the University of Edinburgh, and has supervised nineteen doctoral theses to completion, many of whose authors now hold academic posts at institutions including Peking University Law School, the London School of Economics, Sciences Po, the University of Manchester and IE Law School (Madrid).
Nehal is the author of over 60 academic articles and editor of thirteen books and edited volumes, including The Cambridge History of Rights (5 volumes, Cambridge University Press, 2025, with Anthony Pagden and Mira Siegelberg), Human Rights in Transition — Possible Futures, Plausible Pasts (Oxford University Press, 2024), Autonomous Weapons Systems: Law, Ethics, Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2016, with Susanne Beck, Robin Geiss, Hin-Yan Liu and Claus Kress), and The Frontiers of Human Rights — Extraterritoriality and its Challenges (Oxford University Press, 2016). He is Founding Editor of the Oxford University Press Series in the History and Theory of International Law (43 volumes published since 2013, with Anthony Pagden and Benjamin Straumann), and Editor Emeritus of the European Journal of International Law following twelve years on its Editorial Board. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Journal of International Criminal Justice and the Advisory Board of Current Legal Problems and was a Founding Co-Editor of Humanity: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2023, and his research on artificial intelligence and international law has attracted major funding, including a £10 million Leverhulme Trust award as Co-Investigator for the Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life.
- English (native)
- Japanese (fluent)
- Italian (good)
- Spanish (reading)
- French (reading)
+44 (0)20 7404 3447
Nehal is a leading scholar and adviser in public international law with special interests in international humanitarian law, international criminal law, human rights, statehood, immunities and the law of international organisations. He is world-leading expert in the regulation of artificial intelligence in armed conflict.
MAIN AREAS OF PRACTICE
- Public International Law
- Civil Liberties and Human Rights
- Crime
- International Refugee Law
- International Law
Prof Nehal Bhuta
Contact Nehal: nehalbhuta@matrixlaw.co.uk | +44 (0)20 7404 3447
Contact Nehal's Practice Team (Team T): TeamT@matrixlaw.co.uk
Nehal is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Edinburgh and a leading scholar and adviser on international humanitarian law, human rights, statehood and the regulation of artificial intelligence in armed conflict.
He holds the established Chair of Public International Law at the University of Edinburgh, where he is Founding Director of the Edinburgh Centre for International and Global Law and Programme Director of the LLM in International Law. He previously held the Chair of Public International Law at the European University Institute in Florence (2012–2018), where he was also co-director of the Academy of European Law. He has held visiting professorships at the University of Melbourne Law School, Peking University Law School, the Catholic University of Leuven/Louvain, the University of Toronto, and the University of Vienna.
Nehal’s subject-matter expertise spans statehood and recognition, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and the law of international organisations, with a specialism in the international law applicable to artificial intelligence and autonomous systems in warfare.
He combines this academic authority with over twenty-five years of experience as a legal adviser and advocate, beginning as a judicial clerk to the Hon. Justice Anthony North of the Federal Court of Australia and an articled clerk at Mallesons Stephen Jaques, and continuing through more than a decade of human rights and international criminal law practice, including as a researcher and Special Advisor on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism at Human Rights Watch.
Experience
Nehal has undertaken legal advisory work for the UK Ministry of Defence and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, concerning international humanitarian law and the use of artificial intelligence in armed conflict. He was commissioned as an expert drafter of the revised Chapter 9 (Civilians in the Hands of a Party) of the UK’s Joint Service Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict, and has advised the FCDO on frameworks for strategic stability relevant to military uses of AI. In 2023–2025 he served as a Commissioner on the Global Commission on Responsible AI in the Military Domain, an initiative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, working alongside lawyers, computer scientists and military officials to produce a Strategic Guidance report presented to the UN Security Council in September 2025.
His earlier advisory and advocacy work includes acting as expert legal adviser to counsel in Nulyarimma v Thompson, the leading Australian case on the domestic status of the crime of genocide and the reception of customary international law into the common law, and advising counsel on the international law governing the nationality of refugee applicants from East Timor. As a solicitor, he represented refugee applicants before the Federal Court of Australia and the Refugee Review Tribunal and provided pro bono assistance to unrepresented asylum seekers in immigration detention in Melbourne. He advised East Timorese and Indonesian human rights organisations on international criminal law matters and undertook international law and transitional justice advisory work in Iraq for the International Centre for Transitional Justice and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
At Human Rights Watch, he represented the organisation as an observer at the Iraqi High Tribunal in Baghdad, in amicus curiae proceedings before the Supreme Court of Canada concerning a Canadian minor detained at Guantánamo Bay, and as counsel in the 2008–2010 Iacobucci Inquiry into the treatment of Canadian citizens detained and tortured in Syria following the transmission of questions by Canadian intelligence services. He has also provided an advisory opinion for an international organisation on the withdrawal of a member state from its constituent treaty.
Nehal is admitted as Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia.
Education and Teaching Activities
Nehal holds an LL.M. in International Legal Studies from New York University School of Law (Hauser Global Scholar), an M.A. in Political Science from the New School for Social Research (where he was a Fulbright Scholar), and a Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne, where he was ranked first in his graduating class and was awarded the Supreme Court Prize and the EJB Nunn Scholarship. He was a member of the University of Melbourne’s Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot team, winning the World Championship Cup and the Best Oralist award at the World Championship round in Washington, D.C.
He has taught across public international law, human rights, international humanitarian law, and international legal theory at the University of Toronto, the New School for Social Research, the European University Institute and the University of Edinburgh, and has supervised nineteen doctoral theses to completion, many of whose authors now hold academic posts at institutions including Peking University Law School, the London School of Economics, Sciences Po, the University of Manchester and IE Law School (Madrid).
Scholarship
Nehal is the author of over 60 academic articles and editor of thirteen books and edited volumes, including The Cambridge History of Rights (5 volumes, Cambridge University Press, 2025, with Anthony Pagden and Mira Siegelberg), Human Rights in Transition — Possible Futures, Plausible Pasts (Oxford University Press, 2024), Autonomous Weapons Systems: Law, Ethics, Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2016, with Susanne Beck, Robin Geiss, Hin-Yan Liu and Claus Kress), and The Frontiers of Human Rights — Extraterritoriality and its Challenges (Oxford University Press, 2016). He is Founding Editor of the Oxford University Press Series in the History and Theory of International Law (43 volumes published since 2013, with Anthony Pagden and Benjamin Straumann), and Editor Emeritus of the European Journal of International Law following twelve years on its Editorial Board. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Journal of International Criminal Justice and the Advisory Board of Current Legal Problems and was a Founding Co-Editor of Humanity: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2023, and his research on artificial intelligence and international law has attracted major funding, including a £10 million Leverhulme Trust award as Co-Investigator for the Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life.
Languages
- English (native)
- Japanese (fluent)
- Italian (good)
- Spanish (reading)
- French (reading)