Bryan Peeler

• POLS 2502 - Introduction to World Affairs
• POLS 3390 - Just War Theory
• POLS 3560 - Politics of International Law
• POLS 4160 - Cases in International Law
• POLS 7270 - Cases in International Law
   

My research focuses on the intersection of international relations and international law. I seek to understand the different ways international law constrains state power. There is a growing tendency to argue that international law shapes the behavior of states via a logic of appropriateness rather than the logic of consequences stressed by realists and neoliberal institutionalism. By contrast, I understand the core evolution in law to be a more nuanced understanding of reciprocity. Building on Robert Keohane’s distinction between specific and diffuse reciprocity, I distinguish between two types of specific reciprocity: legal and strategic. While legal reciprocity involves the reciprocal commitments that states build into the wording of international law, strategic reciprocity can be used as a policy device regardless of the law. This understanding of reciprocity gives my research an appreciation of domestic debates regarding international obligations that are missed by other logic of consequences approaches.

• PhD (Political Science), University of British Columbia, 2016
• MA (Political Science), University of Manitoba, 2008
• M Phil (Philosophy), King’s College (London), 1996
• MA (Philosophy), University of Manitoba, 1994
• BA (History), University of Manitoba, 1991

Research interests

• International relations
• International law

Research affiliations/groups

• Research Fellow, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba
• Advisory Board Chair, Manitoba Chair of Global Governance Studies

• Deniz Yildirim, MA thesis, “Analyzing the Freedom Convoy Through Demand and Supply-Side Perspective in Far-Right Literature,” 2024.
• Shamuddeen Bagura, MA major research paper, “NATO in Libya: Siding with the Rebels,” 2024.
• Brendan Reimer, MA Major research paper, “Stuxnet Cyber-Attack,” 2024.
• Stephen J. Lunn, MHR major research paper, “Jus ad Bellum and Malicious Cyber Operations: A Critical Infrastructure Approach,” 2021.

• Bryan Peeler, 2019. The Persistence of Reciprocity in International Humanitarian Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.