I teach courses in international law, property law, climate change, and law, science and technology, with particular emphasis on questions of ecology, alterity, and unequal power.
Prospective doctoral candidates are encouraged to contact me to discuss potential projects for supervision.
Principles of International Law
The course introduces students to key actors in the international legal system and to foundational doctrines and principles, including sources, self-determination, and state responsibility. We explore these doctrines and principles in the context of contemporary disputes and controversies, and consider how climatic change may be placing pressure on the foundational assumptions of the discipline. Throughout, students develop professional skills in reading cases and interpreting treaties, as well as reflecting on what other skills might be needed for the practice of international law in a climate-changed world.
This is the international law module I teach in the LLM program at ANU Law School. The module attached here is currently under revision for the 2026 session.
International Law, Science
and Technology
Questions relating to the status, distribution and use of science and technology are of growing significance for a range of international legal fields and doctrines, across international economic law, the law of the sea, international environment and climate law, and the law of territory. This subject enables students to explore these changes and their significance for international society. The subject introduces students to key disputes, treaties and institutions, and explores the influence of diverse disciplines including economics, history, anthropology, and science and technology studies (STS) on legal debates. Throughout, we consider overarching questions of the legal treatment of scientific knowledge, the distribution and commercialisation of technology in international society, and the significance of technological change for legal doctrine.
The course is offered as an elective at undergraduate and graduate levels at ANU Law School. The content of the course will change year-on-year to reflect current controversies.
Property in a Settler State
This course focuses on the distinctive questions raised for the law of property by Indigenous–settler relations. It provides students who have already studied the basics of property law with an in-depth grounding in specific legal issues relating to property in Australian society (real property and the law of native title, patents, choses in action, and constitutional obligations), and across a range of legal fields and sites of struggle (water, mining, fishing, climate). The course familiarises students with legal precedents, statutes and treaties relevant to this area, as well as theoretical frameworks enabling them to consider the law in light of its historical, social and ecological dimensions.
The course is offered as an elective at undergraduate and graduate levels at ANU Law School.
International Law and Climate Change
International law has become a crucial battleground in the struggle to address climate change. In this course, we explore the rapidly evolving landscape of the lawfulness of climate harms, both historic and ongoing. We begin by exploring the legality of, and international responsibility and reparations for, greenhouse gas emissions. We then turn to examine how international law organises and responds to measures proposed as a means of addressing those harms, amid deep contestation over the legality and justice of many such measures. In doing so, we will pay particular attention to how international law forms part of broader strategies, coalitions and movements for climate action, as well as the role of corporate and civil society actors, smaller and larger states, and First Nations peoples in these movements.
The course is offered as an elective at undergraduate and graduate levels at ANU Law School. The content of the course will change year-on-year to reflect current controversies.