Staff Directory Jane McAdam
Associate Professor Director of International Law Programs Director of International Refugee and Migration Law Project, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law BA (Hons) Syd; LLB (Hons) Syd; DPhil Oxon
Contact Details Telephone:  +61 2 9385 2210 Email:  j.mcadam@unsw.edu.au Office:  Law Building 342

Dr Jane McAdam is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of NSW. She is also the Director of International Law Programs, the Director of International Moots, and the Director of the International Refugee and Migration Law project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law. She is a Research Associate at the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre, and has also been the Director of Oxford’s International Summer School in Forced Migration. She previously taught in the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney, and at Lincoln College at the University of Oxford, where she obtained her doctorate.  In the second half of 2009, she was a Visiting Fellow at Lincoln College.

Jane is the author of Complementary Protection in International Refugee Law (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007); co-author with Guy S Goodwin-Gill of the University of Oxford of the third edition of The Refugee in International Law (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007); and the editor of Forced Migration, Human Rights and Security (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2008). She is currently working on two new books: a monograph entitled Climate-Induced Displacement and International Law (Oxford University Press, Oxford, forthcoming 2011), and an edited collection entitled Climate Change and Displacement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Hart Publishing, Oxford, forthcoming 2010).

Jane currently 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 Jane’s research on climate-induced displacement. More information on that project can be found here: http://www.gtcentre.unsw.edu.au/projects_partners/projects/irml/index.asp. 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 part of a research team awarded a grant from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council International Opportunities Fund for a collaborative project entitled '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'.  Her research partners are Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill (Oxford), Professor Geoff Gilbert (Essex), Professor Kate Jastram (Berkeley) and Professor James Simeon (York University, Toronto).

Jane is the Associate Rapporteur of the Convention Refugee Status and Subsidiary Protection Working Party for the International Association of Refugee Law Judges. She is a consultant to UNHCR on the international law aspects of climate-related displacement.  She is a Member of International Law Association (World) International Teaching Committee and the Management Committee of the Refugee Advice and Casework Service in Sydney, and has worked on a variety of projects for the European Union, Green Cross Australia, the Refugee Review Tribunal, the Czech–Helsinki Committee, Amnesty International and the Refugee Council of Australia.  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.

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

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

3. 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)

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

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, 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

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