James is a Lecturer at the School of Law and Social Justice at the University of Liverpool with research interests in the area of EU citizen participation and direct democracy. His doctoral research was on the legal framework for citizen participation through direct democracy, particularly the European Citizens Initiative and UK referenda. Since then James has published on the legal admissibility of European Citizen's Initiative proposals in the EU Constitutional law Review and in the publication An ECI That Works, and works closely with the ECI Campaign Group to support the implementation and development of the ECI. Last year James co-organised a major conference titled 'Democratic Participation in a Citizen's Europe: What next for the EU?' and he is co-editor of an edited collection with the same title, which is due out later this year. James has recently completed an article titled 'EU Citizen participation and the ECI: The TTIP Legacy', which assesses citizen participation during the TTIP negotiations.