Dr Daley J Birkett

• PhD in Law, University of Amsterdam, 2021
• LLM (Cum Laude) in Public International Law, Leiden University, 2012
• LLB (Honours) in Law, Durham University, 2011

Daley first studied law at Durham University, where he earned his LL.B. with honours and began to develop his interest in international and criminal law. He went on to complete an LL.M. in Public International Law at Leiden University, graduating cum laude and receiving the Leiden Journal of International Law Thesis Prize for his thesis on the legality of Kenya’s 2011 invasion of Somalia. His Ph.D., awarded by the University of Amsterdam, examined asset freezing at the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Security Council.

Before joining the University of Birmingham, Daley held academic posts at Macquarie Law School and Northumbria Law School. At these institutions he led the design of three new postgraduate law programmes in Business and Human Rights, Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Law, and International Criminal Law and Practice, work that contributed to his recognition as a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). In Sydney, he also contributed to innovations in assessment design, particularly in responding to the emergence of generative AI and its impact on legal education, and presented these initiatives at Asian Law Schools Association conferences in Taiwan and Malaysia.

Daley has an extensive record of success in international moot coaching. At the Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law, he co-coached teams in the International Criminal Court Moot Court Competition and the Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Moot. At Northumbria, where he served as Director of Mooting, his teams reached the quarter-finals of the KK Luthra Memorial Moot and placed fifth overall at the DM Harish Memorial Moot. Most recently, at Macquarie, he coached the Nuremberg Moot Court team, which placed second overall among more than 120 universities worldwide, with one team member awarded Best Speaker.

Beyond academia, Daley formerly worked as a Legal Consultant to the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials in Phnom Penh. In this capacity he advised the International Judges of the Supreme Court Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia on international and comparative criminal law, international humanitarian law, and international human rights law.

Building on his professional experience in Cambodia, Hong Kong, and Australia, Daley has played an active role in advancing international law in the Asia–Pacific region. He has served as a Governing Board member of the Foundation for the Development of International Law in Asia, a Committee member of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law International Peace and Security Interest Group, and a member of the invitation-only International Law Association Study Group on Asian State Practice of Domestic Implementation of International Law.

• English Legal System, Legal Skills and Methods (Convenor)
• Principles of Criminal Law and Regulation (Convenor)
• Principles of Public Law (Convenor)

Daley welcomes approaches from prospective doctoral students in his areas of research expertise, especially international criminal law and international peace and security law.

He has previously supervised projects at PhD and MRes levels on topics such as China’s implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the role of the Financial Action Task Force in shaping domestic financial crime laws, and the strip-searching of children under New South Wales criminal law and international human rights law.

Daley’s research interests lie in the field of public international law, with a particular focus on the law and practice of international(ised) criminal tribunals, particularly the International Criminal Court and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and on international peace and security, especially United Nations Security Council sanctions regimes and the law governing the resort to force.

Daley’s current research, in collaboration with Gregory S. Gordon of Peking University School of Transnational Law, examines sentencing in international criminal law, including projects on sentencing the crime of aggression and on punishing the proposed crime of ecocide. In parallel, and building on his work on Asian States’ domestic implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Daley is undertaking a project that assesses the status of its incorporation in the Pacific region.

Daley is the author of Asset Freezing at the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Security Council: A Legal Protection Perspective (Eleven International Publishing, 2021). His scholarship has appeared in leading journals, including the Leiden Journal of International Law, the Journal of International Criminal Justice, and the Chinese Journal of International Law. He has also (co-)edited and contributed chapters to volumes published by Cambridge University Press, Routledge, and Brill Nijhoff.

A multi-award-winning researcher, Daley shared the 2020 Journal of International Criminal Justice Prize (with Priya Urs) for his article, ‘Managing Frozen Assets at the International Criminal Court: The Fallout of the Bemba Acquittal.’ He also received, together with Dini Sejko, the SIEL/PEPA Edward Elgar Prize for the best paper presented at the 2018 Postgraduate and Early Professionals/Academics Network of the Society of International Economic Law conference.