Prof Kimberley Trapp

Biography

Kimberley Trapp is Professor of Public International Law at the Faculty of Laws, UCL. She served as the Faculty's Vice-Dean (International) from 2018-2022. Prior to joining UCL in 2012, she was a Lecturer at Newnham College and an Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge. Kimberley obtained a BA (philosophy), BCL and LLB (all with great distinction) from McGill University before working for several years as an attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell (NY, Hong Kong). Following these years in the corporate wilderness, Kimberley returned to academia, completing her LL.M and PhD at the University of Cambridge. During her doctoral studies, Kimberley clerked for Vice-President Al-Khasawneh and Judge Simma at the International Court of Justice. Kimberley's doctoral thesis was awarded the Cambridge Yorke Prize for a dissertation of distinction, and is the basis of her OUP monograph State Responsibility for International Terrorism (2011) and UN Audio Visual Library lecture on the same subject.

Kimberley collaborates as an academic advisor on issues of international humanitarian and human rights law with various NGOs and Government departments, has published in leading academic journals and edited collections on issues relating to the use of force, State responsibility, the interaction between international humanitarian law and terrorism suppression, and the settlement of international disputes, and has presented related scholarship at various forums, including the Annual Meetings of the Canadian Council on International Law, American Society of International Law and Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law.  Kimberley directed research at the Centre for Studies and Research in International Law and International Relations of the Hague Academy of International Law in 2012. She is co-editor of the OUP 'Elements of International Law' book series, a member of the Academic Review Board of the Cambridge International Law Journal, Board of Editors of the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law and serves on the Advisory Board of the McGill Journal of International Law & Legal Pluralism.