The Laureate Program in International Law at Melbourne Law School was funded by Professor Anne Orford’s Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship from 2015 to 2020. Professor Orford established an interdisciplinary research team of scholars in law, the social sciences, and the humanities to work on a major project entitled Civil War, Intervention, and the Transformation of International Law.

For centuries, international lawyers have played a central role in framing the use of force in civil wars and in developing regimes to limit the interruption to trade and shipping and manage the risk of property loss that result from such conflicts. Questions relating to when and how foreign actors intervene in civil wars have again become a pressing issue given the role of third states and other actors in initiating, supporting, financing, directing, policing, and profiting from civil and proxy wars in the Middle East and North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, as well as the US claim to be engaged in a ‘global non-international armed conflict’ or global civil war. In that context and over the past decade, powerful states have sought to transform the international law relating to the use of force, intervention, trade, freedom of navigation, and investment protection. Professor Orford’s Laureate Program combined historical research, legal analysis, and critical theorising to make sense of the foundational issues at stake in the resulting legal debates about intervention, state responsibility, and the increasing militarisation of civil life.

The Laureate Program brought together leading international scholars of law and history, world-class early career researchers, and innovative practitioners, in order to create a global collective working to explore the place of international law in those contemporary social, economic, and political transformations. Details of the core team members as well as of the participants in the project as visitors or presenters are available on the People and Visiting Fellows pages.

A major emphasis of the Laureate Program was on training a new generation of legal researchers capable of interpreting and responding to developments in the use of force, humanitarianism, displacement, and global political economy. To that end, Professor Orford hosted an expansive programme of visiting fellowships, workshops, policy roundtables, and conferences aimed at building a community of scholars and practitioners. Details are available on the Events, Seminars, and Kathleen Fitzpatrick Fellowships pages.