Dr. Phillip Drew joined the Faculty of Law as Assistant Dean, Juris Doctor and Graduate Legal Studies in January 2020. A graduate of Queen’s Law (JD ‘00 & LL.M. ’12), Phil returned to Queen’s from the Australian National University College of Law, where he was an Associate Professor and a member of the Centre for Military and Security Law. He is the founding Director of the Queen’s Specialized Program in International Law and Politics for undergrads, and has been teaching the Law of Armed Conflict for the Queen’s International Law Program at the Bader International Studies Centre since 2012.
Phil brings a mix of professional and academic experience to the position. A graduate of the Canadian Army Command and Staff College, he served in the Canadian Forces for thirty-one years before retiring in 2014. An Intelligence Officer during the first half of his career, he was operationally deployed to the first Gulf War, Rwanda and on several other missions. After completing his JD at Queen’s he continued his career as a military lawyer. He was the Legal Advisor to the Canadian Pacific Fleet for five years, during which time he was deployed on counter-piracy and counter-terror operations in the Indian Ocean region. Following his departure from the military Phil was appointed as a senior consultant with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, where he worked primarily in areas of Maritime Security and Counter-Piracy operations. Notably, Phil is also the only lawyer in the world who is certified as a Qualified Expert by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
In 2018 he won the ANU College of Law’s Award for Teaching Excellence and was a finalist for the 2019 Australian Law Awards Academic of the Year. He has written extensively on the Law of Maritime Blockade, maritime security and on topics surrounding the lawful use of force. His most recent publication is an edited collection reflecting on the Rwandan genocide, Rwanda Revisited: Genocide, Civil War and the Transformation of International Law.
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