Visiting Parliamentary Fellowship

Sir William Cash served as the Member of Parliament for Stone from 1990 until his retirement in 2024 and is widely recognised for his lifelong commitment to parliamentary sovereignty, democracy, and constitutional law. Margaret Thatcher described him as the “torch bearer on all European issues,” reflecting his central role in shaping parliamentary debate on Europe over nearly four decades.

One of Parliament’s foremost authorities on constitutional and European law, Sir William served on the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee from 1985 to 2024, chairing it from 2010 after election by the backbenches. He was a pivotal figure in modern parliamentary history, leading the Maastricht rebellion and founding the Maastricht Referendum Campaign. The historian Robert Blake described him as “indefatigable… a constitutional lawyer of great expertise.”

A former Shadow Attorney General, Sir William was personally responsible for securing Section 38 on parliamentary sovereignty in the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020. An accomplished author and speaker, he continues to contribute to public debate on governance, constitutional law, and Britain’s post-Brexit future.

Rashmin Sagoo is an international law and policy consultant, and the former Director of Chatham House’s International Law Programme.

Her multidimensional approach bridges her legal, policy, diplomatic and creative worlds.

Rashmin’s career includes senior roles at Chatham House, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, the British Red Cross, and the European Commission, advising on democracy and rule of law issues, global governance, international humanitarian law, equality, human rights and security law. She has worked at the forefront of major UK and international developments, including global conflicts, Brexit, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rashmin has led and been engaged in high-profile cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union, the US Supreme Court, and served as a UK Agent before the European Court of Human Rights.

Accessible law has been a running theme of her career. Her commentary has featured in global outlets including the Financial Times, New York Times, Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Die Welt, Politico, and Le Monde.

Rashmin is also the author of ‘Falling Leaves and Flying Butterflies’, a cancer companion for those navigating a diagnosis, based on her own survivorship. Her next book The Unfurling is out soon.

Krzysztof Pelc is the Lester B. Pearson Professor in International Relations in the Department of Politics and International Relations, and Professorial Fellow at St-Anne’s College. He received his PhD from Georgetown University in 2009. Before joining Oxford, he spent his postdoc in the Niehaus Center at Princeton University, and spent over a decade at McGill University. He has been a visiting professor at NYU, the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Studies in New Delhi, and the University of Copenhagen.

His research is situated at the juncture of international political economy and international law. It is especially concerned with how the design of rules affects the odds of cooperation between states, and benefits some countries over others. This has led him to examine questions around the optimal ambiguity of rules, participation in international institutions, the case for (non)transparency in international bargaining, the effects of (il)legitimacy on political outcomes, precedent in public international law, whether judges should write their own rulings, whether those rulings have effects on financial markets, and whether workers can be effectively compensated for losses from globalization.

Ekaterina Hertog (DPhil Sociology, 2003) is the Associate Professor of AI and Society at the University of Oxford. Her research interests lie at the intersection of digital sociology and family sociology. Her current research explores how digital technologies transform family life, with a particular focus on the adoption and impact of AI and digital technologies in childcare. Her recent work examines the societal implications of digital monitoring technologies, investigating how these technologies affect parent-child relationships, children’s autonomy, and family well-being.

Sam Freedman is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and writes regularly on politics and policy for the Observer the FT and others. Sam’s substack newsletter ‘Comment is Freed’ is the most popular in the UK and has over 80,000 subscribers. His first book Failed State: Why Nothing Works and How to Fix It was released in July, made the Sunday Times bestseller list and was named an Economist, FT and Daily Telegraph book of the year. Sam is also a senior adviser to the education charity Ark; Vice-Chair of Ambition Institute; and a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust.

Ben Ansell is Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions in the Department of Politics and International Relations and Professorial Fellow, Nuffield College.

He received his PhD in Government from Harvard University in 2006 and conducts research in a wide area of comparative politics and political economy. Before joining Oxford and Nuffield College he was an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota.

His initial research focus was the politics of education, with his book From the Ballot to the Blackboard: The Redistributive Politics of Education, published by Cambridge University Press in 2010 and winning the William H. Riker prize for best book in political economy. His second book, Inequality and Democratization: An Elite-Competition Approach, coauthored with David Samuels and published by Cambridge University Press in 2014 won the Woodrow Wilson APSA Best Book Prize and the William H. Riker best book in political economy prize. His third book, coauthored with Johannes Lindvall, Inward Conquest: The Political Origins of Public Services, was published in 2021 by Cambridge University Press. His work has been published in International Organization, Journal of Politics, World Politics, Comparative Political Studies, West European Politics, and the American Political Science Review.

Jonathan is ranked in Chambers and Partners 2024 in POCA, extradition and Inquests and Public Inquiries, and in the Legal 500 2024 in POCA and International Crime and Extradition. He has a wealth of experience handling unusual, sensitive or controversial matters, in the fields of asset recovery, mutual legal assistance, national security, human rights, confiscation, tax and duties, law enforcement, extradition, inquests and immigration, and wherever criminal law interfaces with public law. Before taking Silk, Jonathan was a grade 4 prosecutor and on the Attorney General’s Civil A Panel.

In May 2019, Jonathan Hall KC was appointed by the Home Secretary as Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. As with previous Reviewers, this is a part-time role which Jonathan principally conducts from Chambers. As a result of this appointment, there are certain limits as to the instructions that Jonathan can accept – his clerks will be happy to discuss.

Mitali Mukherjee is a political economy journalist with more than two decades of experience in TV, print and digital journalism. She was a Chevening fellow for the South Asia Journalism Fellowship 2020, a Raisina Asian Forum for Global Governance Young Fellow 2019 and a 2017 fellow of the Australia India Youth Dialogue. In 2020, she was nominated for the prestigious Red Ink Awards in India for two of her business stories.

Over the course of her journalistic career, Mitali has been Consulting Business Editor at The Wire and Mint. Prior to that she was Markets Editor at CNBC TV 18 and Prime Time Anchor at TV Today and Doordarshan. She has been a Fellow at The Observer Research Foundation (ORF) where she led Gender Initiatives for the organisation. Mitali has also co-founded two start-ups that focused on civil society and financial literacy.

She is a gold medallist in Television Journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) New Delhi, 2001 and a gold medallist, Political Science Hons., Delhi University, 2000. She is also a TEDx speaker.

Pauline Neville-Jones is a Conservative member of the House of Lords where she sits on the Science and Technology Committee.

She began work in the Diplomatic Service serving in, among other places, Washington, the European Commission, as Head of the Policy Planning staff, Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee and Bonn. She took part in the negotiations leading to German Unification and was the negotiator for the UK of the Dayton Agreement on Bosnia.

Subsequently she worked in the City and, as Chairman, prepared the government owned technology company, QinetiQ, for IPO. She designed the National Security Council which came into operation in 2010 and served as Minister of State for Security and Counterterrorism in the coalition government under Prime Minister Cameron. She is active in cyber security and resilience.

She has been a BBC Governor and a member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. She is an honorary fellow of Lady Margaret Hall Oxford and has honorary degrees from London, Lancaster and Open Universities. She is a Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, a Privy Councillor and a Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur.

Lucas Kello is the Director of the Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research, a University-wide initiative sponsored by the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).