Melbourne Law School students in the Research Higher Degree Program are completing PhD theses on many human rights-related topics.
Human rights-related PhD thesis topics
- The role of the Security Council in relation to the IsraelPalestine conflict
- The right to essential medicines in International Law, including access to HIV AIDS treatment
- The legislation around female circumcision in Victoria
- The role of human rights and democracy in determining states participation in international organisations
- The Asian Values debate and Human Rights
- To deter and Deny: International law and Australia’s Treatment of Asylum Seekers arriving by Sea
- The Detention, Torture and Punishment of Children: A Rights Based Response
- Domestic Violence in East Timor. Is there a role for indigenous justice systems?
Research Higher Degree Program thesis profiles
Carolyn Graydon
Carolyn’s PhD topic considers domestic violence issues in East Timor, and whether there is a role for indigenous justice systems to respond to this. It considers whether a human rights approach could change an indigenous justice system that has an entrenched gender bias. The thesis draws on women’s role and status within indigenous culture, ritual and myth, and considers whether this too creates potential for change.
Clancy Kelly
Clancy’s PhD explores the right to essential medicines in international law, including malaria treatment, TB, and medicines yet to be developed. She is drawing on intellectual property law, international public health law and international human rights law.
Khaled
Khaled’s PhD thesis is on the UN Security Council’s role in the Israeli/Palestine conflict. He examines the right to return for Palestinians, political rights, the right to life and freedom of movement.
Cressida Limon
Cressida’s research considers economic, social and cultural rights. She uses feminist legal theory to examine the historical uses of intellectual property rights and the intellectual property rights regime, patents and bio-technology. She is examining traditional resource rights, and the cultural rights of indigenous peoples.
Daniel Wanjau Muriu
Using perspectives from Third World Approaches to International Law,
Muriu is examining the impact of international economic institutions on
the realisation of the right to health in sub-Saharan Africa and whether
these institutions can be made accountable for their actions.
Juliet Rogers
Juliet’s PhD examines the legislation of female circumcision in Victoria. She draws on psychoanalytic theory to examine how we look at the presence of ‘others’ .
Kersten Steiner
Kerstin's PhD thesis analyses the international discourse between some Southeast Asian heads of governments and the international community regarding domestic human rights policies. The policies are usually summarised under the heading of 'Asian Values' suggesting that a unique 'Asian' approach to human rights exists based on three distinctive arguments - state sovereignty, cultural relativism and primacy of economic development. It is contended in this thesis that this is not a typical Asian approach of defying international criticism, but a global phenomenon used in different geographical and historical contexts.
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