Welcome!

I am a public and international lawyer and have been working for more than 25 years on the rights of the forcibly displaced as well as human rights more broadly.

I have worked with or consulted to a range of organisations, including Amnesty International, the Association for the Prevention of Torture, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First), the Open Society Justice Initiative, the Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS), UNDP and UNHCR. I have also consulted to governments.

My experience includes:

  • high-level policy engagement in Australia and internationally;

  • legal research, writing and analysis in academia, the non-government sector and for the UN;

  • human rights-oriented capacity-building and training in many countries and contexts;

  • tertiary teaching at both undergraduate and graduate levels; and

  • legal practice as a community-based and legal aid lawyer.

Outside Australia, I have lived and/or worked in a range of countries on projects both large and small in Africa (Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia), the Americas (Brazil, Ecuador, US), South East Asia (Aceh, Cambodia, Timor Leste), Europe (Kosovo, Switzerland, and pre-Brexit UK), and the Pacific (Nauru).

In Australia, I have lectured in undergraduate and graduate programs at the Australian Catholic University, the Australian National University, the University of New South Wales, and Victoria University.  Outside Australia, I have taught at the International Institute for Humanitarian Law in San Remo, Italy, and at New York University.  I have also given guest lectures and seminars at a number of other universities in Australia, the UK, and the US.

I research and write in my field and consult to NGOs, the UN and to governments. I am an Associate Member of the Institute for International Law and the Humanities at Melbourne Law School and have served on the board of JRS Australia since 2010.

I speak French, rather rusty Greek (ξέχασα όλα!), and 'motorbike' Khmer.

I am a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria and have a PhD from Melbourne Law School.

Current Projects

Digitally transforming the way we monitor conditions of immigration detention: I am the Founding Director of a social enterprise, Boniĝi Pty Ltd, which is developing a platform for monitoring conditions in immigration detention and, in the longer term, in other closed environments. I am delighted to have received a Myer Innovation Fellowship 2020 to support this work. Given how vulnerable immigration detainees are to COVID-19, my work will have a strong focus on the public health risks and consequences of such issues as overcrowding and sanitation and hygiene.

Speaking Up, Speaking Out, Speaking With: Advocacy Challenges for Civil Society’s Work with Migrants in Vulnerable Situations (April 2020): This report is based on research I did between September 2018 and March 2019 scoping civil society work in the 'human mobility' sector with people living in Australia on temporary visas. The report includes a postscript on the impact of COVID-19.

The project was generously funded by: The Planet Wheeler Foundation; the Sidney Myer Fund; and Igniting Change. It was a joint initiative of the International Detention Coalition and the Jesuit Refugee Service (Australia).

Contributions to edited collections: I have three new book chapters coming out in edited collections in 2020 and 2021.

‘Australian Responses to Refugee Journeys: Matters of Perspective and Context’ in Rachel Stevens and Jordana Silverstein (eds), Refugee Journeys: Histories of Resettlement, Representation and Resistance (ANU Press, forthcoming 2020)

‘The Right to Liberty’ in Cathryn Costello, Michelle Foster, and Jane McAdam (eds), Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2021)

‘National Constitutions and Refugee Protection’ in Cathryn Costello, Michelle Foster, and Jane McAdam (eds), Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2021)

A socio-legal history of the Cambodian ‘boat people’ in Australia: This project builds on my interest in looking to law's past in order to understand more fully present policy, practice and obligation.  It is grounded in a belief that we need to look back to think ahead, that is to ‘make history work’ by using it to think more creatively about how to shape future policy.

Making Migration Law: The Foreigner, Sovereignty and the Case of Australia: My book, Making Migration Law was published by Cambridge University Press in March 2018. A review of my book by Professor Robert F Barsky was published in the International Journal of Refugee Law in February 2019. For other publications, please see my publications page.