Jane McAdam

Professor

BA (Hons) Syd; LLB (Hons) Sydney; DPhil Oxford
Director, International Refugee and Migration Law Project, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law

Contact details

Room:

342 Law Building

Phone:

9385 2210

E-mail:

j.mcadam@unsw.edu.au

View publications

Brief overview

Professor Jane McAdam (BA (Hons), LLB (Hons) (Sydney), DPhil (Oxford)) is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the Faculty of Law. She is also the Director of the International Refugee and Migration Law project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law and the convenor of the Faculty's Refugee Law and Policy Group. She is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, and a Research Associate at the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre (where she directed its International Summer School in Forced Migration in 2008).

Jane publishes widely in the area of international refugee law, in particular on complementary protection and climate change-related displacement. In addition to her many articles, book chapters, and parliamentary submissions, she is the author of Climate Change, Forced Migration, and International Law (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012), Climate Change and Australia: Warming to the Global Challenge (with B Saul, S Sherwood, T Stephens and J Slezak, Federation Press, Sydney, in press), Complementary Protection in International Refugee Law (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007), The Refugee in International Law (with GS Goodwin-Gill, 3^rd edn, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007); and the editor of Climate Change and Displacement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2010) and Forced Migration, Human Rights and Security (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2008).

Jane's four-year Australian Research Council Future Fellowship examines human rights approaches to slow-onset climate change-related displacement and relocation in the Pacific. She also holds two Australian Research Council Discovery Grants. The first is a three-year grant entitled 'Weathering Uncertainty: Climate Change "Refugees" and International Law', which supports her research on climate-induced displacement. The second is a four-year grant on 'Immigration Restriction and the Racial State, c 1880 to the Present', which examines the history of medico-legal border control in the Asia-Pacific region. This grant is held in conjunction with two historians, Professor Alison Bashford at the University of Sydney and Dr Sunil Amrith at the University of London.

Jane is a consultant to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on the legal aspects of climate change-related displacement, and has advised a number of governments on matters pertaining to refugee law, statelessness, and climate change-related movement. She is the Associate Rapporteur of the Convention Refugee Status and Subsidiary Protection Working Party for the International Association of Refugee Law Judges; a Member of International Law Association (World) International Teaching Committee; and was a Member of the Refugee Advice and Casework Service in Sydney from 2005 to 2012.  She has worked on a variety of projects for the European Union, Refugee Council of Australia, Refugee Review Tribunal, Green Cross Australia, the Czech–Helsinki Committee, and Amnesty International. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Australian International Law Journal, a former General Editor of the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal, and a former member of the Editorial Board of the Sydney Law Review.

Complementary protection resources page: http://www.gtcentre.unsw.edu.au/node/2983

Climate Change and Migration in the Asia-Pacific: Legal and Policy Responses conference (podcast and papers, November 2011): http://www.gtcentre.unsw.edu.au/events/climate-change-and-migration-asia...

Courses taught

Areas of expertise

International refugee law, international human rights law, public international law, forced migration, climate change and displacement, statelessness, EU law relating to asylum and human rights.

Professional memberships and affiliations

Editorial positions

Guest Editor, Refugee Survey Quarterly (vol 27(3), 2008)

Guest Editor (with Tim Stephens), Australian International Law Journal (vol 14, 2007) 

Editorial Board, Australian International Law Journal (2007-current)

Editorial Board, Sydney Law Review (2005-06)

General Editor of the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal (2002-03)

UNSW centres and affiliations

Coordinator, Refugee Law and Policy Group, Faculty of Law, University of NSW

Project Director (International Refugee and Migration Law), Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law

Adjunct Research Fellow, Centre for Climate Change Research, University of NSW

Associate and Management Committee Member, Centre for Refugee Research, University of NSW

Associate, Australian Human Rights Centre, University of NSW

Member, Climate Change Law and Policy Initiative, Faculty of Law, University of NSW

Member, International Law and Policy Group, Faculty of Law, University of NSW

Professional memberships and affiliations

Associate Rapporteur, Convention Refugee Status and Subsidiary Protection Working Party, International Association of Refugee Law Judges

Consultant, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Research Associate, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford

Member, International Law Association (World) International Teaching Committee

Member, Management Committee of the Refugee Advice and Casework Service (Sydney)

Associate, Sydney Centre for International Law, University of Sydney

Grants

1. Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, 'Moving with Dignity: A Human Rights Approach to Slow-Onset Climate Change-Related Displacement and Relocation in the Pacific' (2011-15)


2. Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, 'Weathering Uncertainty: Climate Change "Refugees" and International Law' (2009-11)


3. Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, 'Immigration Restriction and the Racial State, c. 1880 to the Present' (2009-12)


4. Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council International Opportunities Fund, 'War Crimes and Refugee Status: The Application and Interpretation of International Humanitarian and International Criminal Law to the Adjudication of Refugee Status in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand', with Prof Guy Goodwin-Gill (Oxford), Prof Geoff Gilbert (Essex), Prof Kate Jastram (Berkley) and Prof James Simeon (York University, Toronto)


5. Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) grant: 'Imagining a Warmer World: Using Scenario Planning to Create Fair and Equitable Adaptation Law and Policy' (led by Washington School of Law, 2010)