Air Commodore William Boothby is the Co-Chair of the AI-NC3 Norms & Governance Working Group and retired as Deputy Director of Royal Air Force Legal Services in July 2011. He took a Doctorate at the Europa Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder) in Germany and has published books, inter alia, on Weapons Law, Targeting Law, the law relating to conflict and on new and emerging technologies.

More recently with Prof Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, he published a Commentary on the US DoD Law of War Manual and ‘Nuclear Weapons Law’, both with CUP. His book on AI Warfare and the Law was published by USNWC in January 2024 and a revised book on Nuclear Weapons Law published in 2025.

He has been a member of Groups of Experts that addressed Direct Participation in Hostilities and that produced the HPCR Manual of the Law of Air and Missile Warfare, the 2013 Tallinn Manual on the Law of Cyber Warfare and the Leuven Manual on Peace Operations Law.  He is Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg and an Associate Fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.