Professor Philippa Webb

Philippa Webb is Professor of Public International Law at the Blavatnik School of Government. She is Co-founder and Director of the Oxford Institute of Technology and Justice, which launched in October 2025 and is a partnership between the University of Oxford and the Clooney Foundation for Justice. The Institute’s mission is to harness AI to advance justice. It has three pillars: Access to Justice, Accountability and the Advancement of International law.

Philippa’s research interests span all of Public International Law, with particular expertise in international dispute settlement, human rights, international organizations law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. She has been described as “the foremost expert on state immunity”. In 2025, she was elected to the Institut de droit international, whose membership comprises the world's 132 leading international lawyers.

Her publications include: Freedom of Speech in International Law (2024, chapters on insulting speech and false speech, Amal Clooney & Lord David Neuberger KC, eds), The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law (2021, with Amal Clooney) Oppenheim’s International Law: United Nations (2017, with Dame Rosalyn Higgins GBE KC, D Akande, S Sivakumaran and J Sloan), The Law of State Immunity(2015, with Lady Fox KC), International Judicial Integration and Fragmentation (2012, 2015). Her research has been funded by the British Academy, the Balzan Foundation, UNESCO, and the Nuffield Foundation and has been used by the United Nations to develop training for trial monitors around the world. Her scholarship been cited by the leading national courts in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia and South Africa and has twice been awarded the top prize in international law publishing – the American Society of International Law’s Certificate of Merit.