ND London Law Professor Katherine Reece Thomas publishes pioneering book on state immunity

Katherine Reece Thomas, a global associate professor of law in the Notre Dame Law School London Law Programme, recently published her new book,“The Commercial Activity Exception to State Immunity, An Introduction.”

The book is part of the Edward Elgar series ‘Principles of International Law’ and explores questions surrounding state immunity and accountability in domestic courts and international disputes. In particular, Reece Thomas’s new work analyzes state immunity in transactional law, especially in light of the UK State Immunity Act 1978, the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act 1978, and the 2004 UN Convention on the Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property. This new publication, Reece Thomas said, with its focus on commercial activities of states, offers both a practical and a theoretical approach.

“The Commercial Activity Exception to State Immunity, An Introduction” was funded in part by research grants from the University of Notre Dame and City, University London.

“I hope this book will assist academics, students and practitioners as they approach this sometimes overly technical subject and study its role in domestic and international law,” she wrote in the City Law Forum.

In addition to teaching in the Law School’s London Law Programme, Reece Thomas is an associate professor at City, University London, where she teaches public international law, law of the sea,contracts, and company law. Her scholarship includes public international law and company law. She has worked in private practice in London, Paris, and New York, and has taught at the University of Cambridge. She is a solicitor in England and Wales (non-practicing) and a member of the New York State Bar (retired).