Dr Connor McBain

Overview

Career Profile

Connor has a Bachelor of International Relations, an accelerated LLB (with Distinction), and a Master of International and Comparative Law. His PhD in Law (awarded March 2023) was funded by a University of Glasgow College of Social Sciences PhD Studentship (equivalent to £57,000). It examined statehood, limited warfare, and economic coercion in the context of nineteenth century British imperialism in the European and Global semi-periphery (e.g., Greece, Egypt, Latin America).

During his PhD, as a Graduate Teaching Assistant then Teaching Fellow, Connor taught public law, delict, commercial law, tort law, contract, and evidence. For a year following his PhD, Connor also worked as a paralegal in London across commercial litigation, tax, and sanctions.

Connor has been a Lecturer in Law at Ulster University since September 2023. Reflective of his innovative teaching contributions, he was promoted in September 2024. Connor has also become a member of Peer-Review College of the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council, and a member of the British Academy ECR Network, since joining UU.

Teaching

Connor is module coordinator for Tort Law and ‘Thinking like a Lawyer: Contemporary Issues in Law and Society’ (a first-year optional module) at the DLD campus. He also teaches on ‘Public International Law and Contemporary Global Challenges’ at LLM. He has previously lectured in Public Law, and acted as MC for Transitional Justice at UG and LLM.  He has supervised UG/LLM theses in international law, comparative law, and public law, and is presently supervising students on projects in legal history, human rights, and international law.

Since joining UU, Connor has made three distinct contributions to the School of Law’s teaching capacities:

1. Connor designed a new undergraduate module, titled ‘Thinking like a Lawyer: Contemporary Issues in Law and Society’. This first-year module prompts critical reflection on the role(s) of law/lawyers in society, directly embedding frameworks like the Sustainable Development Goals. It covers topics like privacy, COVID-19, euthanasia, climate change, humanitarian law, sports law, and space law. Its assessments are skill-orientated, e.g., a written advocacy task and a reflective task.
2. Connor co-designed a new LLM module, titled ‘Public International Law and Contemporary Global Challenges’, which covers essential topics from a critical and generalist perspective (e.g., sources, statehood, non-use of force) and specialist topics (e.g., international organisations, climate change, critical PIL thought). Its assessments are also skill-orientated, e.g., a written advocacy task (submission to a UN Special Procedures Mechanism) and a critically reflective task (e.g., an essay or case study). This module connects directly to themes in his research (e.g., inequalities of statehood, uses of force/coercion). It is also approaches PIL from a wider critical perspective, teaching doctrines like treaty interpretation or custom formation through lenses discussed above.
3. As convenor of Tort at UU’s DLD Campus, Connor worked with his Belfast counterpart to re-design how Tort is taught and assessed at UU. This involved moving away from a written exam, introduced a reflective essay and an online Multi-Choice Test.

Research

Connor’s research is centred upon international economic order and investigates dynamics of knowledge/power, and the particular role of legal knowledge in entrenching domination. The analytical lens of this research is anchored in critical discourse analysis, but also draws in critical legal studies, legal realism, and historical methods.

His project is presently historical and focuses on intersections of economic/market expansion, justice, and national security/protection. Presently, he writing a series of  highly original outputs on British imperialism and the use of sovereign debt as a justification for limited war in the nineteenth century. Over the next 2-5 years, he intends to shift his lens of analysis forward, constructing a genealogy between his existing research and contemporary interstate economic coercion (e.g., China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the ECB’s management of the post-2008 Eurozone Crisis, IMF conditionality, etc.).

Connor’s existing research is the first phase of a longer career project influenced by his academic background in international relations and international law, as well as his employment in sanctions law. In the longer-term, he wants to use that research/expertise to contribute to research-informed policymaking at national, regional, and international levels.