Research

Projects

Global Poverty and the 21st Century

A project supported by the Start-Up Fund, La Trobe Law School

This project explores the changing nature of poverty in the 21st century and its intersections with public international law, international economic law, and international human rights law. Drawing on nearly two decades of fieldwork across the so-called “developing” world, it examines both the drivers and lived experiences of poverty in a rapidly shifting global context. Led by Professor Luis Eslava, the project’s outputs include a forthcoming monograph, policy papers, international conferences, and a series of PhD projects focused on specific aspects of contemporary poverty.

Amazon of Rights

A project supported by the Volkswagen Foundation

Co-led by Professor Luis Eslava, alongside Michael Riegner (University of Erfurt), Cecilia Oliveira (RIFS Potsdam), and a large interdisciplinary research team, this project develops a new account of eco-centric normativity using the Amazon River as its central case study. Combining experimental ethnographic documentary methods, historical archival research, and fresh fieldwork data, the project seeks to explore and articulate emerging rights-based frameworks for ecological governance.

Key outputs include a documentary film, an edited collection, and a series of research reports and policy briefs aimed at advancing scholarly debates and informing policy in the field of environmental and ecological rights.

Shaping International Law in Times of Global Upheaval: Australian Experiences

A Discovery Project funded by the Australian Research Council.

Examining how Australia influences the development of international law in times of global transformation. Associate Professor and ICLC Member Madelaine Chiam is the lead chief investigator on the project team, working with Jeremy Farrall (ANU), Christopher Michaelsen (UNSW) and Jordana Silverstein (UniMelb).

Resource Struggles and International Law: Navigating Global Transformations

A Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) funded by the Australia Research Council.

Led by the ICLC member Julia Dehm, This project will examine how international law both shapes, and is shaped by, struggles over natural resources in periods of global transformation. It aims generate new knowledge about how international law is used by different actors to assert their authority and power over resources and to secure access to natural resources. Expected outcomes include empirical analyses of three key periods of global transformation in the twentieth century and a socio-legal analysis of how international law is shaping struggles over natural resources during the current transition to a net zero world.