Staff profile

Research

My research focuses on the history and spatiality of international law, both its theory and practice. It addresses contemporary problems by revealing how things came to be this way, and how they could be different. 

My research to date has made two significant contributions within this framework. First, my research has uncovered the historic origins of key ideas of trade, property and morality in contemporary international law. This research was the subject of two articles and my award winning PhD thesis. This research builds upon the existing history of the discipline, but pushes the historical focus back to the 17th century law of nations and the engagement between European empires. I argue that global regulation of trade, property and war had its origins in these colonial encounters and that both the shortcomings and the potential of international law have to be understood in this context. This work crucially adds a focus on legal practice to the existing work in the history of legal ideas. 

Second, my research aims to highlight questions of physical space in international law, a subject of growing academic interest and of immediate political concern. In the contemporary context of a global refugee crisis, a global financial crisis, and the hardening of boarders around the developed world, my research investigates the origins of international bordering and space demarcation. This research has so far led to three articles addressing the sea, land, and international law and spatial theory. All of this research is complementary to and complimented by my work with IBRU: Durham Centre fo Border Research, and in particular the consultation expertise I provide in International Borders and Border Disputes.

My current research project inverts the focus to ask how international law produces space. I am currently writing two articles on examples of international law producing space, at sea and in outer space, and I am planning a monograph as a key output from this project. 

I have presented my research at a wide variety of international conferences, including the Law and Society Association annual meeting, the Association of American Geographers annual meeting, and regularly at the Critical Legal Conference. 

I was a Visiting Scholar at Melbourne Law School during Epiphany term 2017.

Teaching

I have a broad range of teaching interests and expertise. I have convened courses on Trusts and Equity, Legal History, Interscholastic Mooting, and the Law of the Sea LLM course. I have also contributed lectures and seminars in Public International Law and Land Law. I take a research based teaching approach to all these subjects, which means two things. First, it means teaching as a researcher, and giving the students the skills to research themselves. Textbooks are inevitably out of date, and our students must be equipped to find their own answers. Second, it means teaching from research, particularly my own research, something which has been a core feature of the innovative Legal History course design.

I welcome PhD applications in international law, legal geography, legal history, and legal theory, particularly critical theory including feminist and third world approaches. 

Administration

I was the Director of Undergraduate Studies 2017-19, with overall responsibility for the delivery of Durham's LLB. I have also worked as part of the Law School's admissions team as Deputy Director of Undergraduate Admissions.

I am a member and previous director of Law and Global Justice Durham, and a member of the Global Policy Institute and the Human Rights Centre. I am a steering committee member of IBRU: Durham Centre for Borders Research and Durham ARCTIC doctoral training centre.

• International Law
• Legal History
• Law and Geography
• Law and Humanities
• Law and Literature
• Critical Legal Theory
• Marxist Legal Theory
• Law and Colonialism/Post-Colonialism
• Law and Feminism
• Law and Race

• Durham Centre for Law and Philosophy
• Durham Centre for Law and Philosophy
• Gender & Law at Durham
• Human Rights Centre
• Law and Global Justice at Durham

Book review

• Jones, Henry (2022). Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko, Space and Fates of International Law: Between Leibniz and Hobbes, Cambridge University Press, 2020, ISBN 978-1-108-48875-4, £85 (hb). Leiden Journal of International Law 35(1): 211-214.

Chapter in book

• Jones, Henry & Gerrard, Chris (2023). Property and Commons: The tangible and the intangible. In The Routledge Handbook of Property, Law and Society. Graham, Nicole, Davies, Margaret & Godden, Lee London: Routledge. 349-361.
• Jones, Henry (2022). Commodifying the Oceans: The North Sea Continental Shelf Cases Revisited. In Laws of the Sea: Interdisciplinary Currents. Braverman, Irus Routledge. 48-67.
• Jones, Henry (2021). International Law and the Production of new resources: Lessons from the colonisation of Mars. In Routledge Handbook of International Law and the Humanities. Chalmers, Shane & Pahuja, Sundhya London: Routledge. 302-311.
• Jones, Henry (2021). Charity and Ideology. In Critical Trust Law: Reading Roger Cotterell. Piška, Nick & Gibson, Hayley Counterpress.
• Chinkin, Christine, Heathcote, Gina, Jones, Emily & Jones, Henry (2019). Bozkurt Case, aka the Lotus Case (France v Turkey): Ships that Go Bump in the Night. In Feminist Judgments in International Law. Hodson, Loveday & Lavers, Troy Hart. 27-52.
• Jones, Henry (2019). A historical approach to Chagos Islanders v the United Kingdom. In Research Methods for International Human Rights Law: Beyond the traditional paradigm. Gonzalez-Salzberg, Damian & Hodson, Loveday Routledge. 171 - 200.
• Jones, H, Jones, EL, Heathcote, G & Chinkin, C (2018). Bozkurt Case (aka the Lotus Case): Two Ships that Go Bump in the Night. In Feminist Judgments: Rewriting International Law. Hodson, L & Lavers, T Hart.
• Jones, Henry (2016). The Kantian Defence of Murder. In Beyond responsibility to protect: Generating change in international law. Barnes, R. & Tzevelekos, V. Cambridge: Intersentia. 16: 31-52.

Journal Article

• Jones, Henry & O’Donoghue, Aoife (2022). History and self-reflection in the teaching of international law. London Review of International Law 10(1): 71-103.
• Jones, Henry (2019). Property, territory, and colonialism: an international legal history of enclosure. Legal Studies 39(2): 187-203.
• Jones, Henry (2016). Lines in the Ocean: Thinking with the sea about territory and international law. London Review of International Law 4(2): 307-343.
• Jones, Henry (2016). The radical use of history in the study of international law. Finnish Yearbook of International Law 23: 309-350.
• Buchan, Russell, Jones, Henry & White, Nigel (2011). The Externalization of Peacekeeping: Policy, Responsibility, and Accountability. Journal of International Peacekeeping 15(3): 281.

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Jones, Henry & O'Donoghue, Aoife (2017). The Jamestown Massacre: Rigour and International Legal History.
• Jones, Henry (2015). "The World as It Is, Not as We'd like It To Be" - Thinking with the Sea about International Law (Working Paper). Jean Monnet Working Paper Series 05/15.
• Jones, Henry (2014). "Peace! I hate the word!" A few thoughts in favour of conflict.

Presentation

• (2015), Unequal from the Start - A History of International Law in the Context of Colonialism https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/lli/events/courses/researcher-development/DIL-video-archive/cahl/international-law-in-context-of-colonialism, Doctoral Inaugural Lectures Public Lecture. University of Leicester.