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Dr Alexandra Bohm

Profile summary

Professional biography

Alexandra joined the Open University in May 2022 as a lecturer in law, having previously worked at the Universities of Birmingham, Sheffield, Lincoln and Leeds Beckett University. Alexandra qualified as a solicitor in 2003 and practised in the area of construction law (both contentious and non-contentious) for five years before returning to university to complete an MA and PhD in international peace and security law. Her PhD, "The Responsibility to Protect in International Society", was awarded without corrections in 2014. She has taught a variety of subjects while researching and publishing on the Responsibility to protect. Alexandra is also interested in tort law in society, and how it interacts with our rights and responsibilities in life - particularly in relation to cycling, open water access, and also psychiatric harm. 

Research interests

Alexandra's primary research specialism is in international peace and security law, specifically the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as a response to the atrocities in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Her PhD examined this policy doctrine through the lens of the English School of International Relations, taking a critical approach to the causes of violence that the R2P seeks to address and the prioritisation of military responses by global actors. She is also interested in the place of international law within theories of international relations, and in wider aspects of public international law. 

Alexandra is also interested in tort law, having taught this topic for ten years. Her interest here is in how aspects of tort law, such as negligence and trespass, influence our interaction with the world - particularly in relation to outdoor health and fitness such as cycling and open water swimming. She is also interested in psychiatric harm and the changing understandings of mental illness and harm. 

Selected Publications

  • A Bohm and GW Brown, 'R2P and Prevention: The International Community and Its Role in the Determinants of Mass Atrocity' (2020) 13 Global Responsibility to Protect 60-95.
  • A Bohm and R Collins, ‘The (Academic) Profession of International Law and the Commitment to Legal Autonomy’ in A Nollkaemper and ors, International Law as a Profession (CUP 2017).
  • A Bohm and GW Brown, ‘Introducing Jus ante Bellum as a Cosmopolitan Approach to Humanitarian Intervention’ (2016) 22 European Journal of International Relations 897-919. 
  • A Bohm, ‘Conceptions of Security and International Law: the Responsibility to Protect’ in M Footer, J Schmidt and ND White, Security and International Law (Hart 2016).
  • R Cryer, T Hervey and B Sokhi Bulley with A Bohm, Legal Research Methodologies in EU and International Law (Hart 2011). 
  • S Fotios and A Bohm, ‘Cycling, Lighting, Accidents and Responsibility’ (2017) 67 Electricity and People 61-62.

Teaching interests

Alexandra has a wide range of teaching experience. Her main areas of interest are contract law, tort law and public international law (most specifically international peace and security law). She has also taught public law, legal theory, commercial law, legal systems and skills, international dispute settlement, international criminal law and mental health law and policy.