THOM BROOKS is an award-winning legal scholar, educator and public policy leader whose work has influenced national discussions on citizenship, justice and legal reform in the United Kingdom and beyond. Over his career, he has combined academic excellence with public service, advancing the role of evidence-based policymaking and championing fairness, integrity and inclusion in public life.
He is currently providing expert evidence to the UK Parliament on settlement, citizenship and integration policy.
Professor Brooks serves as Principal of Collingwood College and he has a personal Chair in Law, Ethics and Government at Durham University, where he was the longest-serving Dean of Durham Law School. Under his leadership, the Law School strengthened its position as one of the country’s leading centres of legal education and scholarship. He championed access, diversity, and civic engagement, embedding public service into the School’s academic mission. As Dean, Brooks led transformative initiatives that enhanced Durham’s reputation for excellence in legal education. He fostered an environment where rigorous scholarship met real-world impact, ensuring that law students developed not only intellectual depth but a strong sense of social responsibility.
A recognised authority on citizenship and immigration, Brooks is widely known for his pioneering evaluation of the Life in the UK citizenship test. His landmark research revealed critical issues of fairness and accuracy in the test, prompting parliamentary debate and government review. His findings have since influenced public understanding and policymaking on citizenship, integration, and national identity, helping to bring greater transparency and justice to the path to British citizenship and create a more just and cohesive society.
Beyond the university, Brooks has played an influential role in public and civic life. He is a frequent commentator on legal and constitutional affairs for major broadcasters including the BBC, CNN and Sky News, and a regular contributor on radio and to leading newspapers. His public engagement is guided by a belief that law and policy should be accessible, accountable and rooted in service to the wider community. Through his writing and broadcasting, he has helped bridge the gap between academic insight and public understanding.
Brooks is the founding editor of the Journal of Moral Philosophy and serves on more than twenty editorial boards, including the Hegel Bulletin, Journal of Criminal Law, Journal of Global Ethics and New Political Science as well as ten academic book series. He has held visiting positions at Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, LUISS, NYU, Oxford (St John’s College), Penn, St Andrews, Uppsala and Yale and has been a Senior Associate Research Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.
Before joining Durham, Brooks taught at Newcastle University as Lecturer in Political Thought and later Reader in Political and Legal Philosophy. His contributions to law, ethics and public life have helped shape modern British discourse and inspired confidence in the continuing value of academic excellence to the public good.
SEE: THOM BROOKS’S CURRICULUM VITAE
MAJOR PUBLICATIONS
Brooks is the author of several works that have shaped contemporary thinking on justice, citizenship and governance. His recent book, New Arrivals, presents a comprehensive post-Brexit immigration framework for a Labour government. It won the Fabian Society’s Jenny Jeger Prize for Outstanding Publication of the Year and was cited among the Society’s policy recommendations for the Labour Party’s 2024 General Election manifesto. Described by POLITICO as “the first major pamphlet on Labour’s immigration policy for over a decade,” it has been widely recognised for its clarity and foresight.
His earlier books, including Becoming British (2016), noted by Prime Minister Keir Starmer as “a very good and thought-provoking read,” and Reforming the UK’s Citizenship Test (2022), influenced the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee’s inquiry and featured in national media.
His monograph Punishment (2012; 2nd ed. 2021) develops a pioneering “unified theory” of punishment, identified by Research Councils UK as one of the Top 100 “Big Ideas for the Future.” Launched at the Houses of Parliament, it has been praised for its originality and accessibility as “a rare thing… both of interest for experts and accessible to non-experts,” while the late Professor John Gardner described Brooks’s mastery of the subject as “second to none.”. His related scholarship on capital punishment was cited by the Connecticut Supreme Court in the landmark decision State v. Santiago (Santiago II) (2015), which abolished the death penalty in his native state.
Brooks’s other major works include Hegel’s Political Philosophy: A Systematic Reading of the Philosophy of Right (2007; 2nd ed. 2013), Hegel’s Political Philosophy: On the Normative Significance of Method and System (with Sebastian Stein), and Rawls’s Political Liberalism (with Martha C. Nussbaum), described as “a jewel of a collection” uniting leading theorists including Frank Michelman, Onora O’Neill, Jeremy Waldron and Paul Weithman.
In the field of global justice, he is editor of The Oxford Handbook of Global Justice (2020) and author of Global Justice: An Introduction (2023) and The Global Justice Reader (2008; rev. ed. 2023), recognised for pioneering a cross-cultural approach to global ethics and equality.
CURRENT PROJECTS
UK Immigration Law and Policy
Brooks is one of the United Kingdom’s leading authorities on immigration law and citizenship policy. His research has directly shaped public debate and legislative reform. He authored the most comprehensive analysis of the Life in the UK test, successfully advocating for the inclusion of British culture and history, recommendations subsequently endorsed by multiple House of Lords committees here, here and here. The Government has since announced plans for a refresh of the test in its latest Immigration White Paper.
His work has informed the Law Commission’s review of the Immigration Rules, accepted by the Government, and has contributed to major reviews of border control, electronic travel authorisations and asylum systems. His findings—cited with approval in a House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs inquiry—have influenced recommendations on electronic border management and refugee policy.
A member of the Office for National Statistics Migration Statistics Users’ Group, Brooks collaborates with the Home Office and devolved administrations to improve transparency and accuracy in migration data. His report Sea Change on Border Control—on tackling small boat crossings—was debated in Parliament and viewed over six million times online, sparking national discussion on asylum and fairness.
He has also advised the BBC on legal and immigration matters for Call the Midwife and Rip Off Britain, and supported the Home Office on the implementation of the National Security Act 2023, for which he was formally thanked in Parliament. His current research explores the responsible use of artificial intelligence in immigration law, with a focus on fairness, efficiency and integration.
Crime and Punishment
Brooks’s research in legal and political philosophy has made major contributions to rethinking the theory and practice of punishment. He developed the “unified theory of punishment,” which integrates retributive, deterrent and rehabilitative approaches into a principled, pragmatic framework.
His work has informed government thinking on sentencing reform, economic crime (including fraud) and victims’ rights. He has served on the Crown Prosecution Service North East Community Panel, supported the Ministry of Justice, and submitted expert evidence to the UK Sentencing Review. His current research explores “penal pluralism”, a concept he developed to understand how modern justice systems balance multiple aims within a coherent vision.
Philosophy and Public Policy
Brooks has long bridged the disciplines of philosophy, law and governance. His book The Trust Factor collects over two decades of his writing on major issues in British and American politics and was quoted in the 2022 House of Lords Queen’s Speech Debate.
He was described by ITV News as “the man behind Leave and Remain” after being cited by the Electoral Commission in its report that led to the rewording of the 2016 EU Referendum question, later accepted by the Commission and the Government of Prime Minister David Cameron.
In 2024, he co-edited British Legal Reform: An Agenda for Change (Policy Press), with Catherine Atkinson MP and David Drew, produced in collaboration with the Society of Labour Lawyers. The volume, endorsed by Solicitor General Sarah Sackman KC MP, Lord Falconer of Thoroton KC, Philippe Sands KC, and Professor Patrick Diamond, sets out an ambitious agenda for modernising British justice.
He is currently under contract for a major new book on jurisprudence, continuing his work at the intersection of ethics, law, and public policy.
Public Service, Leadership and Professional Engagement
Brooks’s expertise has informed parliamentary committees, government departments and public inquiries across the United Kingdom, ensuring that rigorous academic research directly contributes to fairer laws, better governance and a stronger civic culture.
He has advised the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Law Commission, and his evidence has been cited in several House of Lords inquiries that have influenced national policy. His recommendations have shaped reforms in citizenship, immigration and justice, reinforcing the principles of fairness, transparency and accountability within the British legal system.
An active public communicator, Brooks has made over 2,000 media appearances since 2013 across television, radio, and print, regularly contributing to the BBC, CNN, Sky News, and other major outlets. His ability to explain complex legal and constitutional issues with clarity and balance has strengthened public understanding of law and democracy and helped bridge the gap between academia, policy, and public life.
As Principal of Collingwood College and former Dean of Durham Law School, he has championed diversity, access and academic excellence, ensuring that education serves both knowledge and the common good. Under his leadership from 2016 to 2021, Durham Law School doubled in size, achieved its highest-ever QS World Ranking (40th), recorded 93% overall student satisfaction in the National Student Survey, and earned an Athena Swan Bronze Award for advancing gender equality. These achievements were formally recognised in an Early Day Motion tabled in the House of Commons.
Brooks was the longest-serving dean in Durham’s history and the only head of department to win three consecutive elections since the School’s founding more than fifty years ago. During his tenure, he expanded opportunities for students from underrepresented backgrounds, increased access to scholarships and placements and launched initiatives to link academia with civic engagement. Among his achievements were the creation of the Leo Blair Prize for Advocacy and helping create the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Friends of Durham University to promote collaboration between higher education and Parliament.
His commitment to leadership and public service extends well beyond Durham. Brooks currently serves as Chair of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Public Philosophy (since 2023), following earlier leadership of its Committee on Philosophy and Law (2009–2012) and service on the Executive Board of the Political Studies Association (2006–2009).
From 2020 to 2021, he served as the 112th President of the Society of Legal Scholars, the oldest and largest learned society for legal academics in the United Kingdom—and only the second person not British or Irish by birth to hold the office in its 112-year history. During his presidency, he co-hosted a landmark cross-society conference with the Law Commission, contributing to its 14th Programme of Law Reform.
Brooks is an elected executive board member of the Fabian Society—originally filling the a seat formerly held by Keir Starmer—and former executive board member of the Society of Labour Lawyers, both key Labour Party policy think tanks. He is an Academic Bencher of the Inner Temple, a former Chair of the Academy of Finland’s Philosophy Panel and a former Trustee of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL).
RECENT TALKS THIS YEAR
2-5 December 2025 Panel speaker, “On getting professors engaged in college,” The 5th Collegiate Way International conference, Durham University, UK.
1 December 2025 Invited speaker, “How to work in politics,” College of St Hild and St Bede Senior Common Room, Durham, UK
15 October 2025 Panel chair, “Magna Carta in the North,” Durham Cathedral, UK.
11-13 September 2025 Invited speaker; “The Philosophy of Right and wrong: Hegel on crime, transgression and injustice” conference; Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and the Law; Freiburg, Germany.
2-4 September 2025 “Matters of Facts,” Society of Legal Scholars annual conference, University of Leeds, UK.
15 May 2025 Keynote speaker, LegalEdCon 2025, London, UK.
AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS
Fellow, Royal Statistical Society, 2024
Jenny Jeger Prize, Fabian Society, 2022
Principal Fellow, Higher Education Academy, 2022
Elected Member, Academia Europaea, 2021
Who’s Who, 2018
Distinguished Alumni Award, School of Politics & Global Studies, Arizona State University, 2017
Debrett’s People of Today, 2015
Fellow, Higher Education Academy, 2014
Fellow, Royal Society of Arts, 2012
Fellow, Royal Historical Society, 2010
Fellow, Academy of Social Sciences, 2009
Graduate Essay Prize, Hegel Society of Great Britain, 2004
Professor Magennis Prize, Department of Philosophy, University College Dublin, 2000
Distinguished Student Award, William Paterson University of New Jersey, 1997
Pi Sigma Alpha, National Political Science Honor Society (USA), 1997
Third Place Prize, American Junior High School Mathematics Examination, American Mathematics Competitions, 1986
DURHAM UNIVERSITY AWARDS
Dean’s Award, Durham Law School, 2022
Excellence in Teaching and Learning Award, Durham University, 2016
Law Teacher of the Year, Durham Law School, 2015
Lecturer of the Year, Faculty of Social Sciences and Health, 2014
Outstanding Contributions to Media Award, Faculty of Social Sciences and Health, 2013
EDUCATION
Ph.D., University of Sheffield, Department of Philosophy
M.A., University College Dublin, School of Philosophy
M.A., Arizona State University, School of Politics and Global Studies
B.A. (dual major) William Paterson University of New Jersey, Departments of Music and of Political Science
Curriculum vitae (interactive).
CONTACT DETAILS:
Email: thom.brooks at durham.ac.uk
BLUESky: @thombrooks
THREADS: @_thom_brooks_
Twitter/X: @thom_brooks
Available for bookings.
