Dr Alexander Gilder
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+44 (0) 118 378 4434
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Associate Professor of International Law and Security
- Academic Lead
- Deputy Research Division Lead
- Module convenor for Foundations of International Law (LW1FIL/LW2FIL), International Law and Global Security (LW3IGS), Cyber Security and the Cyber Battlespace (Army Higher Education Pathway), and Negotiation in International Relations, Cyber Battlespace, & Leadership in VUCA Environments (Army Higher Education Pathway, co-convenor)
Areas of interest
Dr Gilder specialises in international conflict and security primarily focusing on (1) human security in military operations, particularly those of NATO and its member states and (2) UN peacekeeping.
His book, , includes an analytical framework of human security that he applied to UN missions in Mali, CAR and South Sudan. He has used this framework to generate impact in his work with the , where he has advised on the Military Contribution to Human Security (MC2HS) and co-authored policy on how NATO HQ ARRC operationalises human security in its operations. In his role as Academic Consultant at NATO HQ ARRC, he has briefed or provided requested information to numerous NATO bodies and engaged with various branches of UK defence on similar workstreams related to ‘Human Security in Defence’ (Joint Services Publication 985).
He is particularly interested in (1) (Protection of Civilians (PoC), Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC), Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV), Combating Trafficking in Human Beings (CTHB), Cultural Property Protection (CPP)) at both a strategic level and as both a task for the civil-military cooperation branch (CIMIC J9/G9) and whole HQ at the operational and tactical levels and (2) the relationship between human security and national resilience in both a NATO and UK defence context. At the request of NATO Allied Command Transformation, his research has examined the impact of a human security approach on NATO collective defence.
Alex has published widely on UN peacekeeping including on , , , , , and including examining missions such as UNMISS, MINUSMA, MINUSCA, and UNOCI. He has edited and .
Postgraduate supervision
Alex welcomes PhD applications that fall within his above areas of interest.
Current PhD students
- Charlotte Graham, ‘What obligations do the international community have to help disseminate IHL to non-state actors? What, specifically, must Canada do to lessen violations of IHL by nonstate actors?’
- Daniel Linsdell, ‘Do Reverberating Effects in Proportionality Analysis Resonate with Human Security?’
Completed PhD students
- Sqn Ldr Tara Brown, ‘Is the current international legal framework robust enough for States to respond to threats in outer space which fall below the threshold of an armed attack?’
Teaching
Alex teaches on the following modules:
- International Law and Global Security (UG) (Module co-convenor)
- Foundations of International Law (UG) (Module convenor)
- Cyber Security and the Cyber Battlespace (Army Higher Education Pathway) (Module convenor)
Alex is engaged in professional military education convening a module on the University’s Army Higher Education Pathway, working as part of the Partnership for Peace Consortium’s Human Security in Operations Working Group to prepare a handbook and reference curriculum on human security for intermediate officers, supporting the NATO/UN Approaches to Protection of Civilians course led by the Finnish Defence Forces' International Centre (the NATO Department Head for Integrated Security), and has taught British Army and Royal Navy officers and Senior Ratings.
He has led clinical education projects including a prize-winning, student-centred collaboration with the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (Somaliland). The project won the and the . You can read more about the project in the .
Research centres and groups
Background
Alex is Associate Professor of International Law and Security, an Academic Lead, and Deputy Research Division Lead. He is also an at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) where he supports the Institute’s work on Military Sciences and in the School of Humanitarian Studies at Royal Roads University (Canada).
As a leading expert on human security in military operations, he has worked as a Consultant/Contractor at NATO HQ Supreme Allied Commander Transformation and NATO HQ Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, is a member of NATO's Research Task Group on Human Security and Military Operations and has acted as a Subject Matter Expert for Navy Command Headquarters, Royal Navy. He has engaged with a wide variety of NATO and UK defence organisations to provide input on the development of human security doctrine and policy.
Alex has held visiting positions at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University (Canada), Leuphana Universität Lüneburg (Germany), Gujarat National Law University (India), and the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Hargeisa (Somaliland). He has guest lectured on topics of international law and global governance on the London Law Programme of the University of Notre Dame (USA) and the University of Virginia Summer Program at University College, University of Oxford. Prior to joining 91猫先生, he was a Lecturer in Law at Royal Holloway, University of London.
He is Associate Editor of Societal Impacts (Elsevier) and the Series Editor of Anthem Advances in Defence and Security Studies (Anthem Press). He sits on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of International Peacekeeping (Brill) and the Asian Yearbook of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (Brill).
Academic qualifications
PhD (City, University of London), LLM (Utrecht University), PgCAP (City, University of London) LLB (Hons) (University of Lincoln).