Policy Adviser & Public Speaker:
War, Security, Technology Policy
James is the NATO Country Director of the Full Spectrum Drone Warfare project, supported by NATO SPS, and a UK MoD Defence Opinion Leader. In 2019, he co-founded BISA War Studies, the War Studies section of the British International Studies Association (BISA). He now serves as the co-lead of this organisation with a membership made up of over 200 policy practitioners and academic experts. James previously held the position of NATO Country Director of the Vulnerabilities of the Drone Age project (2020-2022) and worked as a weapons adviser to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions (2018-2021). This work involved investigations into the killing of General Qassem Soleimani and the shooting down of Ukraine Airline flight PS752. Through 2022/24, James co-led a United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Programme project on Autonomous and Remotely Operated Systems for the UN Office of Counter Terrorism. The project contributed to the adoption of the Delhi Declaration (2022) and the Abu Dhabi Declaration (2023) by the United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee. The final 116 page report of the project was approved and published by the UN in 2024. James is currently working with the UN to tackle the proliferation and misuse of drones by violent non-state actor groups across the African continent.
Selected Policy Reports
Global Report on the Acquisition, Weaponization and Deployment of Unmanned Aircraft Systems By Non-State Armed Groups for Terrorism-related Purposes, UN Office of Counter Terrorism. With Rob Hunter-Perkins and Himayu Shiotani. 2024.
The Transnational Threat of Terrorist Drones. United Nations Security Council. 2022.
The Vulnerabilities of Drone Age. NATO SPS / CSS / CWS. With Dominika Kunertova, 2022.
The Domestic Threat of Drones, UK Parliament. 2019.