Chris O’Meara

Chris O’Meara is a British Academy Global Innovation Fellow in the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is also a senior lecturer (associate professor) in international law at the University of Exeter, where he directs the Exeter Centre for International Law. His scholarship addresses conflict and security, with particular expertise in international law governing the use of force and international humanitarian law. His current research examines the legal regulation of emerging technologies, including cyber operations and outer space, and the operation of international law and organizations in a period of contested authority and institutional strain.

Chris holds a PhD in international law from University College London and was a fellow in law at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has been a visiting researcher at Harvard Law School and Leiden Law School, and previously practiced as a lawyer at Linklaters and Latham & Watkins. He is the author of Necessity and Proportionality and the Right of Self-Defence in International Law (OUP, 2021), and his latest book, The Right of Self-Defence in International Law, is forthcoming with OUP in its Elements of International Law series. Chris has published widely in leading international law journals, including the Leiden Journal of International Law, the International & Comparative Law Quarterly, and the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law. 

Chris engages with practitioners and policymakers on the legal regulation of force and armed conflict. He helped design and taught Modern Warfare: Law and Ethics for the UK’s Ministry of Defence Tri-Service University Short Course Programme and has contributed to the British Army Operational Law Course by training British and other NATO military personnel. He has participated in expert events on the governance of warfare convened by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, bringing together legal, military, and diplomatic professionals. He was also a contributor to the Security & Defence PLuS Alliance’s Track 1.5 dialogue on norm development in outer space.