As a practising Barrister Professor Malcolm Shaw KC has developed an international reputation for advising on various aspects of international law, including territorial disputes; law of the sea; state succession; state immunity; human rights; self-determination, international arbitration and international organisations. Advice has been given to the UK Government and a significant number of foreign governments, international organisations, multinational corporations and private clients. He has appeared before the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Justice, the Court of Final Appeal (Hong Kong), the High Court of Ireland, the UK Supreme Court, the House of Lords, the Court of Appeal, the High Court of England and arbitral tribunals.

In addition to a varied and wide international practice, he also has had an extensive career in the academy, having been Head of a Law School, and a member of the national Law Panels for both the 1996 and 2001 Higher Education Funding Council’s Research Exercises, as well as a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Review of Law in 2005. He was the Founder Director of the Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, 1983 and is also the author of a widely-cited textbook on international law now in its ninth edition (2021) and of the fifth edition of Rosenne’s multi-volume work on the Law and Practice of the International Court of Justice (2016). He has been a Trustee of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and is a Member of the Commercial Bar Association (COMBAR). He was elected an associate member of the Institut de Droit International in 2013. 

He was elected an Honorary Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge in 2023. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the University of Paris Ouest, Nanterre, France and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He has given a considerable number of papers at home and abroad, including before the UN Security Council and in Hong Kong. He has also given the  inaugural General Course on International Law at the Academy of International Law, University of Xiamen, China (2006); the Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures at the University of Cambridge (2011);   and the Inaugural Lecture at the Winter Session of the Hague Academy of International Law (2021).