Associated Events

Andrew Byrnes and Gabrielle McKinnon in conversation with Richard Ackland SMH Columnist and law journalist

We accept the universal right to live in freedom and without oppression, but are our human rights adequately protected by Australian law? Is a national Bill of Rights necessary?

For more information see event flyer.

Professor Hilary Charlesworth pictured with Professor Don Rothwell, Acting Director of the Centre for International and Public Law and the The Honorable Michael Kirby AC at the Annual Kirby Lecture.

Organised by the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Melbourne, this conference explored how the notion of a ‘public good’ has been challenged by the shifting and competing values of an increasingly complex local and global community. It explored the interface of values in policy and the relationship between democracy, human rights and pluralism.

For more information on this event please the website.

This two day Conference was organized by the New Zealand Centre for Public Law and supported by the New Zealand Human Rights Commission; Australia and New Zealand Society of International Law; the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs; Amnesty International New Zealand; Human Rights in Education New Zealand; and the New Zealand United Nations Association is an exercise in evaluation. How have human rights developed over the last six decades? How do we assess contemporary rights needs and challenges? What rights pathways need opening into an uncertain future?

Program

The adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations on 10 December 1948 meant that for the first time in human history a general catalogue of the rights of individuals was made the explicit subject of international standards.

It was then, and remains, a controversial document. One of the most persistent controversies which has dogged it over six decades is whether it can claim universal application in a world marked by religious, cultural and civilisational differences.

The conduct of the ‘war on terror’ has led Western Governments to resist the universal application of the Declaration. Australian laws raise serious human rights questions: both preventative detention and control orders are mechanisms that are inconsistent with the rule of law and with human rights. Whenever exceptions to human rights based on culture differences are proposed, we should investigate the political agenda of the culture claim.

For more information about this event please see the website.

The Human Rights Sub-Committee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade marked the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) with a public forum. Professor Charlesworth's speech was entitled "Looking Forward".

For more information on this event please see the website. The event program can be found here.

This paper begins with the observation that feminist scholarship in international law has mainly generated debate between feminists, and has attracted little engagement from the mainstream. It considers one strand of the internal debate -- the arguments of Janet Halley's book, Split Decisions: How and Why to Take a Break from Feminism (2005), and their applicability to international law. Halley contends that feminist theory has obscured many realities through its focus on sex and gender. She also argues that feminists do not adequately acknowledge their own power in public realms such as governance. I have considered these questions in the context of modern international law.

An audio recording of the seminar is now available here.

Event photos.

For more information please see the flyer.

Anna Funder presented the third public lecture in the 2008 series of Sydney PEN Voices: The 3 Writers Project. She spoke on the subject of COURAGE which was followed by a conversation with Professor Hilary Charlesworth.

Anna Funder is the author of Stasiland, stories of people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship of East Germany, and of people who worked for its secret police, the Stasi. Stasiland was shortlisted for many prizes in Australia and Britain and in 2004 received the world’s largest non-fiction award, the BBC 4 Samuel Johnson Prize.

For more information please see the website.

Convenor Professor Charles Sampford, from the Institute of Ethics, Governance and Law, said one of the hottest topics in international relations this decade was the responsibility of the international community to protect vulnerable populations from human rights violations.

Debates over how to respond to atrocities such as Rwanda, or Darfur in Sudan, have tended to focus on what right the international community has to militarily ‘intervene’ in these countries.

The forum addressed these issues by debating the topic 'Should the responsibility to protect override national sovereignty?'

For more information on this event please see the website.

As the Australian Government commits to increase aid and work for the Millennium Development Goals, there will be new opportunities for wider engagement in reducing poverty and supporting equitable and sustainable outcomes in our region and beyond. Non-government organisations, business, the education sector, faith groups, local communities, media, volunteers and others all have a part to play. How can we best build new partnerships for development that reflect the commitment of the Australian community to act on poverty and development? How can we combine skills, ingenuity and resources here with those in developing countries to create new opportunities and generate solutions to the challenges ahead.
For more information please see the flyer.

What it’s all about - Why do conflicts within states sometimes wane (e.g., Khalistan, Free Quebec)? Are they simply smashed by superior state force? Do generations run out energy? Do skilful governments ameliorate injustice? Do foreign interventions and peace mediations work? Do foreign backers stop backing? What combination of all these? 

Such questions tax many of us in the College, and we bring to bear on them the lenses of every discipline from history and anthropology to economics and strategic studies. “Diminishing Conflicts,” therefore, seemed a fruitful theme for a series of winter conversations, inspired by the successful “Keywords” conversations of last winter. 

Each week in “Diminishing Conflicts” (the ambiguity of the title is intentional) a speaker will discuss an example where internal conflicts have waned, diminished or apparently disappeared. Speakers will attempt to explain why. Audiences will be invited to intervene.

A copy of Susan's speech can be found here.

Hilary presented the La Trobe Centre for Dialogue 2008 Annual Lecture. In her speech she discussed the relevance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the 21st Century.

For more information please see the flyer. A video of the leture is also available here for viewing.

The event will be held from 6pm, Monday 22 September, and will feature presentations by the Hon Dr Mike Kelly, Professor John Braithwaite, and Joanne Lee at the Finkel Theatre (John Curtin School of Medical Research), followed by a reception with canapes and light refreshments.

Please see flyer for more information.

Those interested in attending should RSVP gkaharvey@redcross.org.au or (02) 6234 7666

This conference will explore the relationship between democracy and international law, including such topics as the adherence by democratic states to international law and the democratic credentials of international organisations and the law they develop and enforce.

Jeremy's paper is entitled ‘Reducing or Compounding the Democratic Deficit? International Law, the United Nations and Post-conflict Democracy.’

For more information on the conference please see the Faculty of Law, University of Alberta.

Professor Hilary Charlesworth will speak in the opening session of the workshop which will address the philosophical and legal issues surrounding humanitarian responses and the protection of the vulnerable.

This one day conference brings together academics, politicians, humanitarian aid practitioners, military and police. A diverse range of speakers will explore the legal, ethical, political and practical conundrums surrounding conflict intervention for human protection purposes. Themes arising from the conference will be used to test the feasibility of creating a UN Emergency Peace Service.

For more information on the workshop please see the program.

The Sydney Institute is a privately funded not-for-profit current affairs forum devoted to encouraging debate and discussion.

The podcast of Hilary's presentation is now available on the Sydney Institute website.

A paper of Hilary's presentation can be downloaded from her publications page.

This Year's conference took the theme "Security, Scarcity, Struggle: The Dilemmas of International Law," which reflected a number of debates that are currently occurring in the area of public international Law.

Jo is spoke on the Peace and Security Panel, Professor Charlesworth was on the plenary panel titled "Struggle."

Gabrielle participated in the Postgraduate workshop on 25 June presenting "Engendering Security - Privatizing the Police in Bosnia."
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For more information on the ANZSIL conference and associated activities please see the programmme.

This international workshop promoted a multidisciplinary approach towards understanding national identity problems in seven South and Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Burma, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Thailand, India and Indonesia’s former province of East Timor. It explored the political, economic, legal, security and other compromises that have been offered by national governments to negotiate shared-rule outcomes with their separatist movements through the devolution of central state authority and resources. These attempts to achieve conflict resolution through autonomy have met with varying degrees of success, ranging from Indonesia’s successful offer of self-governance to Aceh to the ongoing separatist insurgencies in Indonesia’s Papua, southern Thailand, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka and Burma. 

For more information please see the workshop website.

This forum brought together 20 top ARC-supported researchers to demonstrate – in plain English – how their work is 'making a difference' to the world in which we live.

Professor Hilary Charlesworth, ARC Federation Fellow (2005) and Director for the Centre for International Governance and Justice, will be presenting her research outcomes in "Human rights: Translating global standards to the local level". Professor Charlesworth’s groundbreaking work has influenced government policy and improved protection of human rights in Australia and overseas. In particular, she has contributed significantly to the global debate on ‘gender mainstreaming’ and to challenging the assumption that Australia’s commitment to a ‘fair go’ means we are adequately protected when, in fact, there are Australian laws that breach human rights standards.

For more information please see the forum program or the ARC Press Release.

This forum consisted largely of people who support improved legal protection for human rights in Australia.
The main objectives of the forum were:
* to update the participants on recent developments in this area
* to discuss broad strategies in the debate on a national charter of human rights; and
* to discuss how best to provide a platform for future cooperation among organisations and individuals who support the enactment of a charter of human rights.

The aim of this seminar was for participants to understand the deep and underlying causes of conflict in the region, some of the consequences of conflict and how conflict can be resolved and how conflict can be addressed. The focus discussion was on examples of conflict, conflict-resolution and and peacebuilding from the region, notably from Timor-Leste, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

The fourth session addressed the issue of dealing with the legacies of conflict through a variety of different justice approaches.

The Crawford School of Economics and Government manages the Australian node in the World Bank's GDLN for GDLN-Australia.

The Australian Global Development Learning Network (GDLN-Australia), provides a flexible learning system that uses two-way video conferencing, internet and other advanced communication technologies to link together a global network of learning centres. It is an interactive, multi-channel network with a mandate to serve the developing world. GDLN-Australia is a World Bank initiative. The content is targeted at policymakers, development practitioners, and other agents of change.

The Dealing with Legacies of Conflict agenda.

The Pacific Leader's Virtual Forum brochure.

More information on the GDLN-Australia.

As part of his Fellowship with the International Journal of Transitional Justice (IJTJ), Adérito will attend the IJTJ Board Conference and Fellowship Workshop in Cape Town. This event will explore the future directions in international justice, and the workshop will provide the opportunity for the attendees to develop writing and comparative content skills, with the year long goal of each Fellow developing a paper of sufficient quality to be considered for publication in the IJTJ, or other key international publication.

For more information on the IJTJ and fellowships please visit the website: http://www.csvr.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=899&Itemid=

IISL provides the possibility every year of organising short workshops that aim to provide a space for interdisciplinary and intercultural discussion on the sociology of law. This workshop aimed to bring together scholars interested in feminist critique and international law to open up a discussion about the 'truths' and 'blind spots' in feminist scholarship on international law and, in particular, advance the discussion about theory and method in this area.

For more information on the workshop please see the programme.

The Conversations Project is a series of conversations between academics and groups and individuals outside the academic environment, such as non-governmental organisations, practitioners and policy makers.  The purpose of each conversation, which covers a discrete topic, is to transfer knowledge through the cross fertilisation of ideas.

The first event was with Professor Hilary Charlesworth, Gita Sahgal of the Gender Unity at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International and Kathryn Lockett from the NGO, Womankind, facilitated by Dr. Zoe Pearson from Keele University. The topic of conversation was ‘Gender, Human Rights and International Law’. The conversation along with a transcript can be found here.

Women have played an important part in peacebuilding in many parts of the world. This lecture will consider the roles women have taken in peacebuilding in Bougainville, Timor-Leste and the Solomons in particular and the problems they face in these 'post-conflict' societies. It will use these examples to reflect on the way women, peace and security are constructed more generally in the international sphere.

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs is holding a roundtable on constitutional reform in Australia with specialists in the area. The general aim of the roundtable is to explore the current debates surrounding constitutional reform, with a view to assisting the Committee in assessing the priority and feasibility of change in key areas. Professor Hilary Charlesworth, Director of CIGJ, is one of the participants.

For more information on the roundtable please see the flyer.

Or visit the LACA website at: http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/laca/index.htm

On the 19 and 20 April the Rudd Government is holding its 2020 Summit of 1,000 Australians from a range of backgrounds to 'harness the best ideas for building a modern Australia that is ready for the challenges of the 21st century'. A number of ANU academics are among those selected to participate. This seminar brings together some of these people across a range of subject areas to discuss their views on the summit and outline the issues they plan to raise.

Speakers are: Professor Hilary Charlesworth, Dr Jane Golley, Professor Bob Gregory, Professor Ann McGrath, Professor Warwick McKibbin.

For more information please see the flyer.

Enquiries: seminars.polsci@anu.edu.au or 6125 7664

Dr Farrall's lecture titled "The UN Security Council's Powers under Chapters VI and VII of the UN Charter" was presented to the Graduate Class on International Organisation at Melbourne University.

The Leadership Development Conference is a key annual event in the Australian Scholarships Leadership Development Program. The conference brings together outstanding leaders throughout our region who are studying in Australia under the Australian Scholarships Australian Leadership Awards (ALA) Scholarship program.

Australia is committed to supporting leadership and cooperation in the region. One way of doing this is through ALA Scholarships, and the Leadership Development Program. Speakers at the Leadership Development Conference contributed to this valuable support.

Speakers sought were those with a significant leadership profile from the Asia-Pacific, prominent academics and Indigenous leaders. Speakers’ topics will be both significant and current areas of interest in the Asia-Pacific region. As such, the scope of topics for consideration may be wide and varied but will ultimately support the aims and goals of the conference and the ALA Scholarship program.

The conference aimed to:

*showcase proactive leadership styles and practices for tackling priority issues in the region.

* provide opportunities for scholars to discuss and debate, in a safe, facilitated environment, priority issues in the region and what leadership responses are required to address these.

* showcase women as leaders of change.

* provide opportunities for scholars to discuss and debate how gender impacts effective leadership and strategies for developing gender equality

Adérito and Bu were joined by Susanna Barnes and Hugh White to discuss the crisis in Timor Leste.

Susanna Barnes is a Field Researcher working on the ARC Project \'Waiting for Law: Land, Custom and Legal Regulation in East Timor. She has a background in History, Spanish and Anthropology of Development. Previously Susanna has worked as an Adviser to the Reception, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CAVR) in East Timor and for Jesuit Refugee Service in East Timor and Rome.
Adérito Soares is a PhD scholar in the Centre for International Governance and Justice, RegNet. He holds a bachelor of law degree from Satya Wacana University in Indonesia and a Master of Law from New York University. Prior to the 1999 referendum, Adérito worked for human rights NGOs in Indonesia. He returned to Timor- Leste in 1999, actively campaigning for independence and worked for several NGOs in Timor-Leste. In 2001 he was elected to East Timor’s Constituent Assembly and was instrumental in drafting East Timor’s first constitution. From 2003 to 2007 he worked for various national and international NGOs in Timor; as a consultant to the UN; and a law lecturer at Timor’s university. He has published extensively on Timor-Leste and Indonesia and is regularly interviewed as a commentator on Timor-Leste by international media.
Hugh White is the Professor of Strategic Studies and the Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University. Before taking up that position he was the first Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), an independent non-partisan centre established by the Australian Government to provide fresh ideas about Australia\'s strategic and defence policy choices.

Professor Hilary Charlesworth gave the opening address of the Tuesday session of the conference.

In the 15 years since the UNESCO Memory of the World programme was established much has been achieved. The time is now appropriate to celebrate its many successes, to identify its shortcomings and to propose potential improvements. The Conference will be held in association with a symposium on Intangible Cultural Heritage at the Australian National University on Monday 18 February and will be preceded by a meeting of the Regional Memory of the World Committee for the Asia-Pacific Region (MOWCAP) on 17-18 February.

For more information please visit the conference website at:
http://www.amw.org.au/mow2008/mow/mow2008.htm

and the conference program at:
http://www.amw.org.au/mow2008/mow/mow2008(Orig).htm

Smoke and Mirrors: Institutionalising Fragility in the Polícia Nacional Timor-Leste
The crisis in Timor-Leste in 2006 is widely understood to have come about as a result of the frailty of state institutions and the weakness of the rule of law. The accompanying collapse of the Polícia Nacional Timor-Leste (PNTL) in the capital Dili has re-emphasised previous analysis that has critiqued the adequacy of the creation of that institution by international actors, and its subsequent politicisation by the East Timorese Government. The current United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNMIT) has a mandate not only to re-establish security but also to assist the government of Timor-Leste to review the security sector and redevelop the PNTL. This paper argues that UNMIT, together with UNPOL, has a lack of capacity to fulfil that mandate and is unclear how to engage with the sovereign government and the PNTL. The mandate is made more difficult by an outstanding need for the East Timorese Government to more clearly articulate a differentiation of roles between the police and the military; and to ensure an inclusive and coherent vision of the kind of police force that is required. Together these factors are contributing to a further institutionalisation of fragility of the PNTL.

Charles Darwin University, in conjunction with The Australian National University and the Timor Institute of Development Studies, will host an international conference entitled Democratic Governance in Timor Leste: Reconciling the Local and the National on 7 and 8 February, 2008.
The 2008 conference will focus on how the process of ‘nation building’ might be envisaged given the international, national and local expectations that press upon the Timor Leste Government and parliament. The aim is to ask speakers to examine critically the emerging relations between the various levels of social, institutional and organisational practice that confront the politicians and ‘civil society’ during this critical phase of the country’s development. What space currently exists for the genuine expression and achievement of the citizens’ aspirations? How might the situation be improved?

Bu's paper available here.

For more information on the conference and other speakers, please see the conference website at: http://www.cdu.edu.au/timorlesteconference/about.html

The annual AFSAAP conference will be held from January 31 2008 to February 2 2008 at The Australian National University in Canberra. The Postgraduate Workshop will be held on Wednesday, January 30 2008. The program for February 2 will include presenters from African community organisations. AFSAAP is grateful to the Freilich Foundation for supporting some of the inter-state speakers.

Dr Jeremy Farrall of CIGJ will be speaking on the panel "Discussion on keeping the peace in Africa," focusing on his experience of UN Peacekeeping in Liberia.

The draft conference program is available here.

For more information on the AFSAAP and full conference details please see the association's website at: http://www.afsaap.org.au/

All candidates contesting the federal seats Canberra and Fraser at the forthcoming election have been invited to speak about how, if elected, they will personally protect human rights in the ACT. The Canberra forum will also be an opportunity for Canberrans to ask their candidates questions about human rights.
Keynote speakers will be Professor Hilary Charlesworth (ANU) and Refugee Activist Marion Le. The Forum will be chaired by founding Chair of The Justice Project, Kurt Esser following a welcome by Ngambri-Ngunnawal elder, Matilda House.

A sausage sizzle starts from 5:30pm-6pm and information about human rights issues will be available from tables provided by various local human rights organisations & groups.

For more information please contact
Jennifer Thompson jenniferthompson@incanberra.com.au
Kurt Esser kurt@thejusticeproject.com.au
or visit the Justice Project website at: www.thejusticeproject.com.au

This forum was for members of the NSW Bar Association, allowing them to join the debate regarding the Charter of Rights. The presentations by Professor Hilary Charlesworth and Noel Hutley SC gave pros and cons of a Bill of Rights for NSW.

For more information please see the event flyer

or see the NSW Bar Association website at: http://www.nswbar.asn.au/

Professor Hilary Charlesworth and Jack Waterford AM Editor at Large, Canberra Times ,both Anti poverty Week Patrons will discuss the issue of Human Rights and Poverty. Time has been allowed for questions and discussion.

For enquiries please contact Robin Brown at tidbinbilla@grapevine.net.au

For further information please see flyer.

For further information on Anti-poverty week please see the website at: http://www.antipovertyweek.org.au/

or calendar of events in the ACT.

The theme for this inaugural conference is Best Practice in Restorative Justice - Transformational Change.

This conference will bring together key people working in Restorative Justice from Australasia and abroad for an intimate conference facilitating connections between diverse groups and practitioners.

RPI has been established by a group of restorative practitioners as the first international professional member based association for restorative practitioners. The organisation is designed to facilitate best practice and to support practitioners in the field of restorative justice and peace building. Whilst initiated in Australia, it is intended that the organisation become a truly international member based group within 3-5 years, with a biennial professional development conference that showcases work across the globe and helps to raise awareness of the important contribution people in our field are making.

For more information please visit the association website at: http://www.rpiassociation.com/

Hilary Charlesworth is an ARC Federation Fellow, Professor in RegNet and Director of the Centre for International Governance and Justice (CIGJ), ANU. She also holds an appointment as Professor of International Law and Human Rights in the Faculty of Law, ANU. Her research interests are in international law and human rights law.

Professor Charlesworth has worked with various non-governmental human rights organisations on ways to implement international human rights standards and was chair of the ACT Government's inquiry into an ACT bill of rights, which culminated in the adoption of the ACT Human Rights Act 2004. She is project leader for the ACT Human Rights Act Research Project, which is a joint project of the ANU and the ACT Government, supported by a grant from the Australian Research Council.

For more information please see the lecture flyer
or the Amnesty International Weatern Australia website http://wa.amnesty.org.au/

This roundtable was organised by the National Europe Centre at ANU. Professor Charlesworth and Dr Farrall were part of the final panel discussion titled "Democracy, Rule of Law, Human Rights."

Professor John Braithwaite delivered the keynote speech at the 20th annual conference of ANZSOC. He looked at the role criminology can play in the process of peacebuilding, focusing on the areas of Indonesia, Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands and discussed the promise of criminology within interdisciplinary social science. The role of restorative and responsive justice will be discussed. The lessons learned from the failures and successes of peacebuilding in our region have not been attended to in the Northern hemisphere centres of power, indeed not by many Australians who learn their lessons from Washington and London think tanks. He discussed the shift from 2000 in peacekeeping from what used to be an overwhelming emphasis on military involvement towards a greater proportion of police peacekeepers.

John Braithwaite is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow and Founder of RegNet (the Regulatory Institutions Network) at the Australian National University .

He is embarked upon a 20-year comparative project on Peacebuilding and Responsive Governance with Hilary Charlesworth, Valerie Braithwaite and Leah Dunn. Braithwaite’s books have won a number of prizes in the US and Europe from the Society for the Study of Social Problems, the American Sociological Association, the Law and Society Association, the American Society of Criminology, the Socio-Legal Studies Association and most recently the US$200,000 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas for Improving World Order (with Peter Drahos) and the inaugural Stockholm Prize for Criminology.

For more information on the 20th Annual ANZSOC Conference please visit http://www.anzsoc.org/
or http://www.alloccasionsgroup.com/anzsoc

This conference will marked the 60th anniversary of the arrival of the first Australian peacekeepers in Indonesia, in September 1947. Since then more than 30,000 Australians have served in peacekeeping operations all over the world. Now Australia is the first country to be writing an official history of its complete peacekeeping record. This was an opportunity to hear members of the official history team, distinguished academics, and past and present peacekeepers look back over the last six decades and contemplate what it means for the future.

Prof. John Braithwaite spoke on the Panel "Room for Improvement" with Senator Marise Payne, Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Standing Committee and Prof. Alex Bellamy from the University of Queensland.

The conference brochure is available here.

For further information please visit the conference website at: http://www.awm.gov.au/peacekeeping/conference.htm

Is it possible to legally invade a country on the basis of changing its form of government? That's one of the questions international law expert Professor Hilary Charlesworth will address next week during a lecture at the University of Adelaide.

Hilary Charlesworth is a Professor in RegNet and Director of the Centre for International Governance and Justice (CIGJ), ANU. She also holds an appointment as Professor of International Law and Human Rights in the Faculty of Law, ANU. Her interests are in international law and human rights law. She has worked on issues such as the relevance of feminist theory to understanding international law, the structure of the international human rights system, and the protection of human rights in Australia.

This is the third in the series of James Crawford Biennial Lectures on International Law hosted by the University of Adelaide's Law School. The first was presented in 2003 by Professor James Crawford SC, one of the University of Adelaide's distinguished graduates and Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge. Professor Crawford will also attend this year's lecture.

For more information please lecture flyer or visit http://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news21341.html

TWAIL is a network of scholars engaged in international legal studies, and particularly interested in the challenges and opportunities facing 'third world' peoples in the new world order. We understand the historical scope and agenda of the dominant voice of international law scholarship as having participated in, and legitimated global processes of marginalization and domination that impact on the lives and struggles of third world peoples.

Michelle Burgis is a PhD candidate at the Centre for International Governance and Justice where she is undertaking a thesis under Professor Hilary Charlesworth. Her thesis is entitled 'Contesting Colonial Legacies: The International Court and Arab States' and this research combines a close reading of four ICJ cases involving territorial issues with TWAIL and other critical international legal perspectives. Michelle has worked and traveled widely in the Arab World and hopes to dedicate herself to more Arabic study after her doctorate.

Usha Natarajan is a PhD candidate researching the war in Iraq and what it reveals about the nature of international law, with particular focus on relations of power and knowledge between Western states and their former colonies. She holds Arts and Law degrees from Monash University and a Masters in International Law from the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica. She is interested in exploring the relationship between culture and law, with a particular focus on how the international legal system engages with cultural diversity.

Previously she has worked with the United Nations and its agencies in Indonesia and Timor Leste on governance, law reform, conflict prevention and dispute resolution issues. Most recently, she worked with the UN Special Ambassador for the Millennium Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific on responding to current and future challenges to international development in the Asian context.

Michelle's conference paper is available here.

Usha's conference paper is available here.

TWAIL III Conference brochure including the program here.

More information on the TWAIL III Conference at: http://www.albanylaw.edu/twail/