Melanie O'brien

• Professor of International Law, The University of Western Australia

Dr Melanie O'Brien is Professor of International Law and Deputy Head of School (Research) at the UWA Law School. Dr O'Brien is immediate past President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars and a member of the WA International Humanitarian Law Committee of the Australian Red Cross. Dr O'Brien is a Visiting Scholar at the Human Rights Law Center, University of Minnesota, USA.

Dr O'Brien's research focuses on genocide and human rights; and sexual and gender-based violence against women. Her work on forced marriage has been cited by and she has been amica curia before the International Criminal Court (ICC); and an expert consultant for various UN agencies. She is the author of Criminalising Peackeepers: Modernising National Approaches to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (Palgrave 2017), and From Discrimination to Death: The Genocide Process through a Human Rights Lens (Routledge 2023). Dr O'Brien is the recipient of the Aurora Mardiganian Medal from the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, and a Long Service Award from the Australian Red Cross.

Dr O'Brien is an admitted legal practitioner of the Supreme Court of NSW. She has previously worked at various Australian universities, the National Human Rights Institution of Samoa, and the International Criminal Court.

• 2026–present Professor, University of Western Australia
• 2021–2025 Associate professor, University of Western Australia
• 2023–2024 Visiting professor, University of Minnesota
• 2018–2021 Senior lecturer, University of Western Australia
• 2015–2017 Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Queensland
• 2013–2014 Human rights legal officer, National Human Rights Institution of Samoa
• 2010–2014 Research fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security, Griffith University
• 2014–2014 International law researcher, Anti-Slavery Australia, University of Technology Sydney
• 2006–2007 Legal research assistant, Human Rights Law Centre, University of Nottingham
• 2004–2005 Law clerk, Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Court

• 2019 University of Western Australia, Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching
• 2010 University of Nottingham, PhD in International Law
• 2004 Raoul Wallenberg Institute, University of Lund, LLM in International Human Rights Law
• 2003 University of Technology Sydney, Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice
• 2002 University of Newcastle, Bachelor of Laws
• 2000 University of Newcastle, Bachelor of Arts

• International Law (Excl. International Trade Law) (180116)

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