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Dr David M. Scott

David M.

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow

Email: David.scott@qmul.ac.uk
Twitter: @David_M_Scott_

Profile

David joined Queen Mary in September 2024 as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow. His project, ‘The Turn to Time in Contemporary International Legal Thought’ (PFSS24/240021), examines international lawyers’ use of temporal framings as a distinct intervention into international law debates over the past quarter century. Studying how international lawyers have used history and theory to situate international law within particular pasts, presents, and futures, his research engages broadly with historiography, legal theory, and critical approaches to international law.

David was previously a Postdoctoral Research Associate in International Law and Governance at the University of Glasgow from 2022 to 2024. His research at the School of Law’s Glasgow Centre for International Law and Security (GCILS) focused on the proposed Scottish Human Rights Bill and its impact on Scottish civil society. This research grew from David’s time from 2021-22 as a Policy Officer at Citizens Advice Scotland, where he led the organisation’s campaigns on social security and employment. At the University of Glasgow, David was also a member of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs; the Director of International Law Mooting within GCILS, coaching the University’s Philip C Jessup International Law Moot Court team; and a coordinator of the relaunch of the Glasgow Human Rights Network, a cross-university network of academics and practitioners in Glasgow who study and work to protect human rights in Scotland and beyond.

David completed his PhD at the Manchester International Law Centre, University of Manchester, his LLM at the University of Helsinki, and his LLB (Hons) at the University of Glasgow. He was previously a visiting researcher at the iCourts Institute, University of Copenhagen (2019), a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public and International Law (2017), the University of Zurich (2016-17), and the Erik Castrén Institute at the University of Helsinki (2015-16)

Research

Funded research

The Turn to Time in Contemporary International Legal Thought

  • British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship PFSS24\240021
  • September 2024 – August 2027
  • £340,030.83

Abstract: Over the past two decades, international lawyers have talked increasingly in terms of time: be it in the discipline’s turn to history, its work to periodise our present ‘era’ or ‘age’, or its attempts to predict the ‘future’ of international law. Utilising an interdisciplinary methodology drawn from German historian Reinhart Koselleck, my research investigates international law’s ‘turn to time’ along two lines: first, as sets of temporal relations that international legal scholars draw between the past, present, and future, in order to produce different interventions in contemporary international legal debates; and second, as an expression of particular beliefs about the present – what makes this moment one that requires temporal thinking. My research explores how and why international lawyers have used time to make arguments about contemporary international law, in order to critically illuminate time as a space of contestation within international legal thought that is ripe for further study.

Read the British Academy funding announcement

Relaunching the Glasgow Human Rights Network

  • Scottish Council on Global Affairs Connections Award
  • December 2023 – July 2024
  • £2,650

Abstract: The Glasgow Human Rights Network comprises members from universities across Glasgow, as well as practitioners, civil society, and national/local government representatives. The SCGA Connections Award will be used to support the Network’s relaunch through a series of events over 2023-24, with the aim of providing the Network with the strongest possible foundation for development of its activities beyond the end of the Award. With the Scottish Government actively developing its human rights policy for the remainder of the Parliamentary session, now is the perfect time to relaunch the Network as a hub for interdisciplinary and globally-informed policy expertise.

Read the final report: Relaunching the Glasgow Human Rights Network.

Incorporating International Human Rights: The protection of Care Experienced People’s Rights in the Scottish Human Rights Bill

  • Expert report for the Human Rights Consortium Scotland and Who Cares? Scotland
  • August 2023 – September 2023
  • £4,000

Description: Funding to produce an expert report for the Human Rights Consortium Scotland and Who Cares? Scotland on how the new Human Rights Bill for Scotland can, and should, better realise the human rights of Care Experienced people.

Read the final report: Incorporating International Human Rights: The protection of Care Experienced People’s Rights in the Scottish Human Rights Bill.

Publications

Articles

  • David M Scott, ‘Rethinking the Turn to History as a Turn to Time’ (2024) 9(2) Jus Gentium: Journal of International Legal History 401
  • David M Scott, ‘The Scottish Human Rights Bill and UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies: How Should Scottish Decision-Makers Treat “International Materials”?’ (2024) 28(3) Edinburgh Law Review 439
  • David M Scott, ‘History as Deconstruction, History as Reconstruction: Time and Structure in Critical International Law’ (2022) 35 Hague Yearbook of International Law 109 
  • David M Scott and Ukri Soirila, ‘The Politics of the Moot Court’ (2021) 32(3) European Journal of International Law 1079
  • David M Scott, ‘Review essay on Research Handbook on the Politics of International Law edited by Wayne Sandholtz and Christopher A Whytock. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78347-397-7’ (2014–2015) 25 Finnish Yearbook of International Law 227
  • Andrew Drzemczewski and David Scott, ‘Council of Europe Cooperation with the European Union in the Human Rights Field’ [2016] European Yearbook on Human Rights 285

Book chapters

  • David M Scott, ‘Human Rights’ in Jean d’Aspremont and John Haskell (eds), Tipping Points in International Law: Commitment and Critique (Cambridge University Press 2021) 172–195

Book reviews

  • David M Scott, ‘Review of Anthony Carty, The Decay of International Law: A Reappraisal of the Limits of Legal Imagination in International Affairs (2nd edn, Manchester University Press, 2019)’ (2021) 34 Leiden Journal of International Law 275

Public Engagement

Consultation responses and expert reports

Media

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