Tom joined Loughborough Law School in January 2026 as a Senior Lecturer. He previously held academic posts at the University of Kent, the University of Leicester, the University of Sussex and Newcastle University. He has also worked as a civil servant, working as a Parliamentary Clerk at the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
He holds a doctoral degree from the University of Southampton, where his thesis focused upon the thought of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, exploring its implications for legal theory and legal reasoning, and he is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
With Professor Colin Murray, he has published work on the attempts by the Chagos Islanders to challenge the expulsion from their homeland by the UK Government. This work has been cited by the UK Supreme Court (in the case of R (on the application of Bancoult (No 2)) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [2016] UKSC 35, [2017] AC 300 [188] (Lady Hale)).
He has published widely on the work of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, including two monographs. The most recent connects Agamben’s philosophy to strands of decolonial theory, specifically Afropessimism.
Tom is currently a member of the Advisory Board for the Journal of Italian Philosophy.
Tom’s research interests focus on the following three areas:
- The history of the British Empire, its governance of its colonies, its involvement in the slave trade, and the position of law in both.
- Decolonial approaches to Public Law specifically, and the teaching of law more broadly.
- The figure of the slave in Western European philosophy and political thought.
Tom’s current research projects include:
- A research project, funded by the Socio-Legal Studies Association, using archival governmental and historical records. This seeks to retell key UK public law cases through the words and testimonies of those involved, showing how British courts have constructed a memory of the UK constitution which effaces the ongoing influence of the British Empire.
- Investigating the dispossession of the Chagossians from Diego Garcia and the legality of the creation of the British Indian Ocean Territory, including considering how environmental law protections were deployed to curtail the rights of colonised peoples.
- Considering the conflict between imperial constitutionalism and its operation throughout Empire and the UK courts’ project since the 1960s to develop a modern body of public law, focusing on how imperial constitutionalism can be challenged today through the common law.
Tom has a wide range of teaching experience and leadership across six UK universities.
His main area of teaching is Public Law (also called Constitutional & Administrative Law), and he has designed and convened Public Law modules.
In his career, he has also convened modules on:
- Equity & Trusts
- Legal Skills and Legal Method
- The English Legal System
- The Law of Tort
- US Constitutional Law
In addition to these convened modules, he has teaching experience on the following modules:
- Criminal Law
- Criminology
- Introduction to Business Law
- Law for Accounting and Finance
- Legal Theory / Jurisprudence
- Medical Law
- The Law of Contract
At other UK universities, Tom has supervised both PhD students and Masters by Research students to completion.
He would welcome applications from prospective PhD students who are interested in post-war continental philosophy, UK public law, or whose project considers the ongoing legal influences of the British Empire.
Monographs:
- The Slave in Legal and Political Philosophy: Agamben and His Interlocutors (Routledge, Abingdon 2025) ISBN: 9781032301273 (248 p.)
- Law, Relationality and the Ethical Life: Agamben and Levinas (Law and Politics: Continental Perspectives, Routledge, Abingdon 2021) ISBN: 9781138726307 (256 p.)
Edited Collection:
- Tom Frost (ed.), Giorgio Agamben: Legal, political and philosophical Perspectives (Routledge, Abingdon 2013) ISBN: 9780415637589
Journal articles:
- ‘The Mists of Time: Intertemporality and Self-determination’s Territorial Integrity rule in the ICJ’s Chagos Advisory Opinion’ (2024) 25(1) Melbourne Journal of International Law 21-50 (with C R G Murray) ISSN 1444-8602 (Winner of the Melbourne Journal of International Law Prize for Outstanding Scholarship in International Law, September 2025)
- ‘Homeland: Reconceptualising the Chagossians’ Litigation’ (2020) 40(4) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 764-794 (with C R G Murray) ISSN 0143-6503
- ‘The Dispositif between Foucault and Agamben’ (2019) 15(1) Law, Culture and the Humanities 151-171 ISSN 1743-8721
- ‘The Chagos Islands Cases: The Empire Strikes Back’ (2015) 66(3) Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 263-288 (with C R G Murray) ISSN 0029-3105 (cited in R (on the application of Bancoult (No 2)) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [2016] UKSC 35, [2017] AC 300 [188] (Lady Hale))
- ‘Agamben’s Sovereign Legalisation of Foucault’ (2010) 30(3) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 545-577 ISSN 0143-6503