Profile
ASH STANLEY-RYAN

ASHLEY STANLEY-RYAN

PhD Researcher in International Law
Teaching Assistant,Geneva Academy of IHL and Human Rights
Teaching Associate, University of Oxford
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Spoken languages
English, French

PHD THESIS

 

Title: The UN Secretariat and the Progressive Development of International Law

PhD Supervisor: Nico krisch 

Expected Completion Date:  expected completion date to 2027

This research project analyses the UN Secretariat’s participation in the progressive development of international law, with a special focus on international peace and security. Progressive development here is used in its broad sense—progressing the law in areas where states have not yet settled on the content of a legal rule. It is argued that the Secretariat plays a substantive role in the formulation of international law, one often overlooked by states – and one which has reverberating, sometimes indirect, effects on the form and content of legal rules. Sources consulted for this project include the broad categories of formal sources contained within article 38(1) of the ICJ Statute, along with official UN publications, travaux preparatoires, institutional archives, and a variety of secondary sources.
 

PROFILE


Ashley (Ash) Stanley-Ryan is a PhD researcher in the international law department, and a teaching associate/assistant at the University of Oxford and the Geneva Academy respectively. He has previously worked for the New Zealand Foreign Ministry, the OHCHR, and the ICRC. From 2024-2025 he clerked at the International Court of Justice. Ash has also served on the editorial team for several peer-reviewed journals.

Ash was one of the two centenary recipients of the prestigious diploma of the Hague Academy of International Law.
 

Areas of expertise
 

  • Public International Law
  • International dispute settlement
  • International lawmaking
  • International humanitarian law
  • International institutional law
  • Law and history
  • TWAIL and critical approaches
     

Publications and works
 

  • “Purposes and Principles of the United Nations Charter” Max Planck Encyclopedia (Forthcoming, co-authored with Pierre d’Argent)
  • “‘How strait must be our path’: Secretariats, Crisis Response, and the Structural Crisis of Independence” in Giulio Bartolini and Anne Lagerwall (eds) Collected Volume of the 2024 Centre, Hague Academy Centre for Studies and Research in International Law and International Relations Series (forthcoming).
  • “On conditional and delayed recognition” (EJIL:Talk!, 2025)
  • “The Presumption of Civilian Status in Cases of Doubt: a Vital Rule in Increasingly Unsettled Times” (Articles of War, 2025, coauthored with Ms. Mina Radončić)
  • "Pro patria mori: When States encourage civilian involvement in armed conflict." International Review of the Red Cross (2024) (coauthored with Ms. Mina Radončić)
  • "Ka mua, ka Muri: He Whakaputanga, Concealed Indigenous Histories, and the Making of International Law" Law&History (2024)
  • “Australia, New Zealand, and Operation Poseidon Archer: Some International Law Questions” (ANZSIL Perspective, 2024)
  • “The UN Secretariat, the Genocide Convention, and the Progressive Development of International Law” (ANZSIL Annual Conference, 2023)
  • “JC and Others v Belgium: the Delicate Balance of State Immunity and Human Dignity” (Strasbourg Observers, 2022)
  • “Achieving Chemical Weapons Convention Compliance in the Aftermath of Khan Shaykhun” New Zealand Journal of Public and International Law 16(1), 2018)

 

ACADEMIC WORK EXPERIENCEs

 

Teaching Experience
 

  • Teaching Associate at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, 2025-ongoing
  • Teaching Assistant at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights 2022-2024, 2025-ongoing
  • Guest Lecturer (International Law), Victoria University of Wellington 2021
     

Research experience

  • Editorial Team and thematic editor, International Review of the Red Cross 2020-2021
  • Student Editor-In-Chief, New Zealand Journal of Public and International Law 2019
  • Research Assistant, Victoria University of Wellington 2017-2019

 

OTHER WORK EXPERIENCEs
 

  • Judicial Fellow, International Court of Justice (2024-2025)
  • Associate, International Committee of the Red Cross (2020-2021)
  • United Nations Human Rights (2020)
  • New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, New York delegation (2018-2019)
  • Clifford Chance Hong Kong (2018)

 

FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS AND AWARDS
 

  • Diploma of the Hague Academy of International Law, 2023
  • Awarded the Sir Francis Forbes Society Prize for Australian Legal History, 2022
  • (2021-2022) Graduate Institute Scholarship

 

affiliations 
 

  • European Society of International Law
  • American Society of International Law
  • Australia and New Zealand Society of International Law
  • Enrolled Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand | Te Kōti Matua o Aotearoa

 

 ORCID