Associate Professor Matthew Zagor has 20 years’ experience as a human rights and refugee advocate, practitioner and scholar. His research is characterised by its transdisciplinary approach and diversity, with recent publications covering comparative constitutional law, the legal recognition of refugee narrative identities, the ‘humanity’ turn of international law, and perspectives of legality amongst Israeli soldiers. His current research applies theories of political theology to the legal construction of the border, the legal paradoxes of refugee resettlement programs, and the Australian judiciary's approach to human rights treaty obligations.

Matthew’s most recent research considers how liberal notions of autonomy, authenticity and redemption inform legal and political constructions of the refugee. His current project uses these concepts to explore state sovereignty and border control.

Before joining academia, Matthew worked in community law, the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department, and as a Member on the Migration / Refugee Review Tribunal. He remains actively involved in law reform and public policy, making regular submissions to Parliamentary inquiries, commenting publicly on refugee policy, and sitting on the Advisory Committee of the ALRC’s Freedoms Inquiry.

Matthew is an Adjunct Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies, and Editor of the Australian Yearbook of International Law. He has held Visiting Fellowships at the LSE Centre for Human Rights and Society and the University of Grenoble’s Centre for International Security and European Cooperation, and in 2013 participated in the prestigious Michigan Colloquium on Challenges in International Refugee Law. Matthew speaks regularly on refugee-related matters in Australia and overseas.

Appointments

• Director, Law Reform and Social Justice
• Adjunct Fellow, ANU Centre for European Studies (Deputy Director 2010-2011)
• Senior Research Associate, Refugee Law Initiative, School of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London
• 2013-2019: Editor, Australian Yearbook of International Law
• 2007-2015 International Humanitarian Law Committee (ACT Branch), Australian Red Cross; Member, Cluster Munitions Coalition (Australia).
• 2006-2013: Academic Editor, Federal Law Review
• 2010-2011: Legal Advisor to the Cluster Munitions Coalition, Australia
• 2007-2012: National Committee, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights
• 2010-2011 Deputy Director, ANU Centre for European Studies
• 2006 Visiting Professor, University of Alabama School of Law; 2006 Visiting Fellow, Centre for Study of Human Rights, LSE; 2012 Visiting Fellow, University of Grenoble; 2017 Visitor Fellow, Georgetown Law; Refugee Law Initiative, School of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London
• 2003-2006 P/T Member, Migration Review Tribunal / Refugee Review Tribunal.
• ACT Editorial Committee, Alternative Law Journal (2005-2008)
• ANUCES Briefing Paper Series (2010-2012).

Significant research publications

• ‘Martyrdom, Antinomianism, and the Prioritising of Christians – Towards a Political Theology of Refugee Resettlement’ (2019) 38.4 Refugee Survey Quarterly 387–424
• 'Adventures in the Grey Zone: Judicial Review of Executive Power in the Migration Context' in M.L. Paris and J. Bell (eds) Changing Landscape - Comparative Reflections on Rights-Based Constitutional Review (Edward Elgar, 2016)
• 'The Struggle of Autonomy and Authenticity: Framing the Savage Refugee' (2015) 21(4) Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture 373-94
• ‘Recognition and Narrative Identities: Is Refugee Law Redeemable?’ in Rubenstein, Nolan and Jenkins, Allegiance and Identity in a Globalised World (CUP, 2014)
• ‘Elementary Considerations of Humanity’ in Bennalier, Christakis and Heathcote, The Enduring Impact of the Corfu Channel Case (2011, Routledge) ‘I am the Law! Perspectives of Legality and Illegality in the Israeli Army’ (2010) 43 Israel Law Review 551
• 'Judicial Rhetoric and Constitutional Identity' (2008) 19 Public Law Review 271
• ‘Exclusion and Uncertainty: the High Court and the detention of aliens’ (2006) 34 Federal Law Review
• 'Persecuted or Persecutor: An Examination of Exclusion under Article 1F of the Refugees Convention,' (2000) 23 UNSW Law Journal 164

View more publications on the ANU Researchers website

Link to ANU researchers profile