Prof Alex Mills

Research summary

Professor Mills' research covers a range of issues in and around the fields of Public International Law and Private International Law (also known as the Conflict of Laws). In Private International Law, his research covers all core topics, including jurisdiction, choice of law and the recognition and enforcement of judgments, with a focus on commercial disputes. In Public International Law, his research has focused on questions of jurisdiction, state immunity, and international investment law, but his teaching has extended to a range of topics including sources, statehood, dispute settlement, and questions of the constitutionalisation and fragmentation of international law. His research also encompasses International Commercial Arbitration, with a focus on issues of jurisdiction, admissibility, applicable law, and the relationship between courts and arbitral tribunals. He is also interested in areas of international legal research and practice which challenge traditional disciplinary boundaries, including foreign relations law, global governance, and transnational (non-state) law.

Professor Mills is the author of books on The Confluence of Public and Private International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Party Autonomy in Private International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018), and a co-author of Cheshire North and Fawcett's Private International Law (15th edition, Oxford University Press, 2017). He is one of the specialist editors of Dicey, Morris and Collins on the Conflict of Laws (16th edition, Sweet and Maxwell, 2022), with particular responsibility for the law on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments (under both English law and the Brexit transitional rules) and for choice of law in property.

Professor Mills' research has also been published in internationally leading journals and edited books, and cited by courts in a range of jurisdictions, including in England and Wales, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, India and Brazil, and by the European Court of Human Rights. He has given presentations to legal professionals and at academic conferences around the world, and has held visiting positions at universities in the European Union, United States and Australia. In 2010, he was awarded the American Society of International Law’s inaugural Private International Law Prize, and he subsequently served on the prize's panel of judges. In 2015 he was Director of Studies for the Private International Law Programme of the Hague Academy of International Law. He was a member of the International Law Association Committee on the Protection of Privacy in Private International and Procedural Law, and serves on the Academic Research Panel of Blackstone Chambers, the Academic Review Board of the Cambridge Journal of International Law, and the Editorial Board of the International and Comparative Law Quarterly. He has been consulted on public and private international law issues by government departments, legal practitioners and non-governmental organisations, and has also served as an expert witness or amicus curiae in foreign courts on matters of English and European private international law.

Teaching summary

International Commercial Litigation (LLM)

Foundations and Principles of International Law (LLM) (Co-Convenor) (not running in 2022-23)

Conflict of Laws (LLB)

Professor Mills has supervised a number of PhD students in the Faculty of Laws through to the successful award of their Doctorates, and welcomes applications from prospective research students.

Professor Mills is also Co-Director of the UCL Public International Law Pro Bono Project which brings together LLM and PhD students with a background in international law and provides them with opportunities to get first hand practical experience in public international law. The Project is on pause in the 2022-23 academic year.

Education

University of Cambridge

Doctorate, Doctor of Philosophy | 2007

University of Cambridge

Other higher degree, Master of Laws | 2003

University of Sydney

First Degree, Bachelor of Laws (Honours) | 1998

University of Sydney

First Degree, Bachelor of Arts (Honours) | 1996

Publications

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