Preston Jordan Lim is an Assistant Professor whose research focuses on Canadian constitutional law and legal history, public international law, and international economic law.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts (summa cum laude) from Princeton University, a Master of Global Affairs from Tsinghua University, where he represented Canada as a Schwarzman Scholar, and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. In addition, he has completed all the degree requirements for a Doctorate in Juridical Science from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where he studied as a Trudeau Scholar. He clerked for Justices Hourigan, Pardu, and Tulloch (as he then was) of the Court of Appeal for Ontario and Chief Justice Richard Wagner of the Supreme Court of Canada. He previously taught as an Assistant Professor at the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law.

Keen to merge practice and theory, Professor Lim has buttressed his scholarly work with practical policy and legal experience. He served as Policy Advisor to the Honourable Erin O’Toole, then Foreign Affairs Critic in Parliament. As a lawyer, he has served as Counsel to a Participant before the Foreign Interference Commission, Lead Counsel to Justice William Hourigan’s Investigation under Alberta’s Police Act, and an arbitral clerk in Ontario-based arbitrations.

He writes on a wide range of topics but focuses most closely upon Canadian constitutional history and on China’s relationship with the international economic order. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in general law reviews such as the Indiana Law Journal, Utah Law Review, and Osgoode Hall Law Journal as well as in specialist law reviews such as the Cornell International Law Journal and the Asia-Pacific Law & Policy Journal. He has written extensively for newspapers and popular outlets, ranging from the Globe and Mail to Lawfare, and has shared his research insights on television and radio. He has presented his work to members of the White House National Security Council and the Senate of Canada Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, among other bodies. Along with Gregory Ringkamp, he hosts the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History’s Time Immemorial podcast. 

Research 

His recent research has focused on the following topics, among others:

  • Sino-Canadian Relations
  • China’s role within and attitudes towards the international economic order
  • Canadian foreign relations law
  • The historical development of key doctrines of Canadian federalism

Recent Professional Achievements

Select Publications

For a complete list of publications and other information, please see Professor Lim’s CV.

Books

  • The Evolution of British Counter-Insurgency during the Cyprus Revolt, 1955-1959 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

Articles

  • “Judicial Diplomacy” (2027) Indiana Law Journal (forthcoming). 
  • “Nevsun and Quebec (AG): Duelling Visions of Canadian Courts’ Role in the World” (2026) Supreme Court Law Review (forthcoming).
  • “Justice Russell Brown’s Rule of Law Thought” (with Larissa Katz) (2026) 10 (3d) Supreme Court Law Review 3-25.
  • “R v Edwards and Constitutional Review of the Military Justice System” (2026) 9 (3d) Supreme Court Law Review 168-177.
  • “The Great Depression and Canada’s Major Originalist Decade” (2026) 62:2 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 569-618.
  • "Sino-Canadian Relations and the Securitization of Domestic Law” (2025) 62 Canadian Yearbook of International Law.
  • “Nourishing the Living Tree: Vincent MacDonald and His Constitutional Thought” (2025) 48:1 Dalhousie Law Journal 333-365.
  • “Symbiotic International Law: Combatting Uyghur Forced Labor” (2025) Utah Law Review 609-674.
  • “The Case for a Canadian Panel on Multi-Jurisdictional Class Proceedings” (with Justice William Hourigan) (2024) 102:1 Canadian Bar Review 240-271.
  • “The New Canadian Defence: The Impact of UNDRIP Article 30 on Canadian Domestic Defence Strategy” (2023) 49:1 Queen’s Law Journal 1-39.
  • “The Somalia Affair and the Transformation of Canadian Military Justice” (2023) 56:1 University of British Columbia Law Review 107-160.
  • “The Originalism of F.R. Scott” (2023) 111 (2d) Supreme Court Law Review 101-113.
  • “The COVID-19 Pandemic and International Law” (with Oona A. Hathaway, Alasdair Phillips-Robins, and Mark Stevens) (2021) 54 Cornell International Law Journal 149-244.
  • “Applying International Law Solutions to the Xinjiang Crisis” (2020) 22 Asian-Pacific Law and Policy Journal 90-156.
  • “Parliamentary Debate as a Driver of Military Justice Reform in Canada” (2020) 35 Canadian Journal of Law and Society 437-454.

Media

  • “Responding to the Trump Administration’s Cuts to International Judicial Work”, Just Security (26 January 2026).
  • “The China-Canada relationship is warming again. But at what human cost?”, The Globe and Mail (24 November 2025).
  • “We can fix Ontario’s civil-justice system without breaking the bank” (with Michael Wilson), The Globe and Mail (15 October 2024).
  • “How Canada can better combat Uyghur Forced Labour”, The Globe and Mail (18 March 2024).
  • “Canada’s Special Economic Measures Act Under International Law”, Just Security (27 February 2024).
  • “America’s Vaccine Diplomacy Should Start in Its Backyard” (with Ryan Dukeman), Newsweek (29 April 2021).
  • “How China’s legal bulwarks for its atrocities in Xinjiang can be overcome”, The Globe and Mail (11 September 2020).
  • “The world needs more Canada, despite—and because of—the coronavirus pandemic”, The Globe and Mail (2 April 2020).
  • “It’s now Canada’s chance to stand up for Hong Kong” (with Dennis Kwok), The Toronto Star (10 December 2019).
  • “Trudeau needs a coherent China strategy”, The Toronto Star (28 October 2019). 
  • “If Canada cares about the rule of law, it has to answer China’s ocean aggression”, The National Post (26 June 2018).