Connor McBain

Dr Connor McBain is a Lecturer at Ulster University School of Law.

Connor's primary research expertise lies in international legal history, imperialism, uses of interstate force, and economic coercion. He is currently working on a monograph concerning the British Empire's uses of international law to justify armed intervention against states who defaulted on debts owed to the Empire or its subjects. The project focuses particularly on reconstructing (and critiquing) Foreign Office decision-making and its 'othering' of non-imperial states (e.g., Greece, Egypt, and Venezuela). This manuscript is based upon his PhD, which was awarded by the University of Glasgow in early 2023. Connor's other interests include international organisations, securitisation, inter-disciplinary treatments of international law (e.g., in international relations and history), and intellectual history broadly considered. In the past, he has undertaken projects on: (1) the fragmentation of international law (and responses to inter-regime treaty conflicts), and (2) the legal justifications surrounding the Darien Scheme, a 17th century Scottish project to establish an empire in Panama.

Connor primarily teaches in the fields of public international law, human rights law, and UK public law. He has also experience of teaching across the LLB curriculum, including tort and contract law.

Prior to joining Ulster Law School, Connor was employed as a paralegal in London, working primarily in tax, sanctions, and commercial litigation. Prior to that, Connor taught at the University of Glasgow School of Law between 2018-2022 and was a research assistant at the Glasgow Centre for International Law and Security. He holds a Master of International and Comparative Law (public international law specialisation) from the University of Helsinki, a Bachelor of Law (with Distinction) from University of Glasgow, and a Bachelor of International Relations (majoring in Diplomacy and IR theory) from Bond University.