School of Social and Political Science

Background

Qualifications

• Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
• PhD (Edinburgh)
• MSc by Research (Edinburgh)
• MA (Leeds)
• Dipl.-Kauffrau (University of Cologne, Germany)

Biographical Statement

Andrea is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. 

Andrea completed her Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh on the international politics of judicial intervention. Her main research and teaching interests lie in the interplay between International Relations and International Law with a particular focus on human rights, counterterrorism, international criminal justice and global governance. Her current research focuses on the impact of different states' contentious counterterrorism measures on human rights, such as the use of drones for targeted killing and citizenship deprivation of 'foreign terrorist fighters' to examine resulting implications for International Law and normative change. Andrea is also interested in the politics of international law in the area of international criminal justice and particularly the International Criminal Court. Andrea is a collaborator on a Royal Society of Edinburgh funded project on "Assessing the Human Rights Potential in Scotland's External Relations"

Andrea teaches and convenes MSc and honours courses on human rights, terrorism and counterterrorism (available on Programmes of Study).

Andrea is a steering group member of the Global Justice Academy and a member of the Centre for Security Research (CeSeR). 

Andrea is co-editor of the journal Global Constitutionalism.

Publications

Monograph

Birdsall, Andrea The International Politics of Judicial Intervention: Creating a more just order London: Routledge, 2009 (paperback January 2012)

Edited Book

McCall-Smith, Kasey, Andrea Birdsall & Elisenda Casanas Adam (eds.) Human Rights in Times of Transition: Liberal Democracies and the Challenges of National Security, Eward Elgar, 2020

Articles

Birdsall, Andrea and Rebecca Sanders 'From ‘evil doers’ to ‘very fine people’: The politics of shifting counterterrorism targets' Journal of Human Rights, vol. 24, No. 2, 2025, pp. 236–253. https://doi.org/10.1080/14754835.2025.2466478 

Birdsall, Andrea ''Enemy of the state': Citizenship deprivation and the problem of returning foreign terrorist fighters' Critical Studies on Terrorism, vol. 18, No. 1, 2025, pp. 246-268. https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2024.2427524

Mills, Kurt and Andrea Birdsall 'Human Rights in Scottish Foreign Policy: Constructing Scotland as a Good Global Citizen' Journal of Human Rights Practice, vol. 16, No. 3, 2024, pp. 915–933. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huae027

Birdsall, Andrea and Rebecca Sanders 'Opportunistic Oppression: U.S. Migration Restrictions and Public Health Policy during the COVID-19 Pandemic' The International Journal of Human Rights, vol. 27, No. 5, 2023, pp. 809-829. DOI: 10.1080/13642987.2022.2044314

Birdsall, Andrea 'New Technologies and Legal Justification: The UK’s Use of Drones in Self-defence' Global Constitutionalism, vol. 11, No. 2, 2022, pp.197–216. DOI: 10.1017/S2045381721000253

Birdsall, Andrea and Rebecca Sanders 'Trumping International Law?' International Studies Perspectives, vol. 21, No. 3, 2020, pp. 275–297

Birdsall, Andrea 'Drone Warfare in Counterterrorism and Normative Change: US Policy and the Politics of International Law' Global Society, vol. 32, No. 3, 2018, pp. 241-262

Birdsall, Andrea 'But we don’t call it ‘torture’! Norm contestation during the US ‘War on Terror’ International Politics, vol. 53, No. 2, 2016, pp. 176-197

Birdsall, Andrea 'The Responsibility to Prosecute and the ICC: A Problematic Relationship?' Criminal Law Forum, vol. 26, No. 1, 2015, pp. 51-72

Birdsall, Andrea 'The "Monster That We Need to Slay?" Global Governance, the United States, and the International Criminal Court' Global Governance, vol. 16, No. 4, 2010, pp. 451-470. Selected for inclusion in Mills, Kurt and Kendall Stiles (eds.) Understanding Global Cooperation: Twenty-Five Years of Research on Global Governance, Brill, 2021, pp. 302-322

Birdsall, Andrea ''A monstrous failure of justice'? Guantanamo Bay and national security challenges to fundamental human rights' International Politics, vol. 47, No. 6, 2010, pp. 680-697

Birdsall, Andrea 'Creating a more 'just' order - the Ad Hoc International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia' Cooperation & Conflict, vol. 42, No. 4, 2007, pp. 397-418

Birdsall, Andrea 'The International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia - Towards a More Just Order' Peace, Conflict & Development, vol. 8, 2006, pp. 1-24

Book Chapters

Birdsall, Andrea, 'Contesting the Meaning, Permissibility and Use of Torture: Enhanced Interrogation Methods and the Norm against Torture', in: Cox, Rory, Faye Donnelly & Anthony Lang Jr. (eds.) Contesting Torture: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Routledge, 2022, pp. 186-202.

Birdsall, Andrea, 'Counterterrorism and Challenges to Human Rights: Justifying Drones and Targeted Killing as Acts of Self-Defence', in: McCall-Smith, Kasey, Andrea Birdsall & Elisenda Casanas Adam (eds.) Human Rights in Times of Transition: Liberal Democracies and the Challenges of National Security, Eward Elgar, 2020, pp. 116-138

McCall-Smith, Kasey, Andrea Birdsall and Elisenda Casanas Adam, 'Human Rights, Liberal Democracies and Challenges of National Security', in: McCall-Smith, Kasey, Andrea Birdsall & Elisenda Casanas Adam (eds.) Human Rights in Times of Transition: Liberal Democracies and the Challenges of National Security, Eward Elgar, 2020, pp. 1-14

McCall-Smith, Kasey, Andrea Birdsall and Elisenda Casanas Adam, 'Reflections on Human Rights and Contemporary Challenges Raised by National Security Discourse', in: McCall-Smith, Kasey, Andrea Birdsall & Elisenda Casanas Adam (eds.) Human Rights in Times of Transition: Liberal Democracies and the Challenges of National Security, Eward Elgar, 2020, pp. 242-254

Lang, Anthony F. Jr. and Birdsall, Andrea 'Justice and (Global) Constitutionalism: The International Criminal Court in the Global Order' in Melissa Labonte and Kurt Mills, (eds.) Accessing and Implementing Human Rights and Justice, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019, pp. 18-38

Birdsall, Andrea 'International law and ethics', in Brent J. Steele and Eric A. Heinze, (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Ethics and International Relations, London and New York: Routledge, 2018, pp. 289-298

Birdsall, Andrea and Anthony F. Lang, Jr. ‘The International Criminal Court and Global Constitutionalism’, in Anthony F Lang, Jr and Antje Wiener, (eds.) Handbook on Global Constitutionalism, London: Edward Elgar, 2017, pp. 383-394; (2nd ed. 2023, pp. 508-518)

Birdsall, Andrea ' The International Criminal Court' The Oxford Encyclopaedia of American Military and Diplomatic History, Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 515-517

Peterson, John and Birdsall, Andrea 'The European Commission: Enlargement as Reinvention?' in: Edward Best, Thomas Christiansen and Pierpaolo Settembri (eds.) The Institutions of the Enlarged European Union: Continuity and Change, Edward Elgar, 2008, pp. 54-81

Book Reviews

Birdsall, Andrea 'Coming to terms with a difficult past', The Political Quarterly, vol. 91, No. 1, 2020, pp. 260-261

Birdsall, Andrea 'Review - Norms Without The Great Powers by Adam Bower', E-International Relations, January 2018

Birdsall, Andrea 'Norms among states: Review of Ian Clark's International Legitimacy and World Society' The Review of Politics, vol. 71, No. 1, 2009

Birdsall, Andrea 'Book Review: David Chandler: From Kosovo to Kabul and Beyond: Human Rights and International Intervention' Millennium, vol. 36, No. 2, 2008