The Australian National University (ANU) Law School is pleased to advertise a three-year PhD scholarship for a highly qualified candidate to study Australia’s and global sanctions implementation. The scholarship is available as part of a Discovery Project grant awarded by the Australian Research Council (ARC). Interested candidates are encouraged to read carefully the position description below.

Project

The PhD scholar will undertake a comparative legal study of the concept of ‘control’ in sanctions laws of Australia, Canada and the UK. This PhD research will form an integral part of the broader project entitled ‘Financial Sanctions: Identifying Sanctioned Persons and Their Assets’. The PhD scholar will benefit from access to interviews conducted by the multi-national, cross-university team of experts as part of the project and will be invited to co-author one or more of its outputs.

This research will be supervised by Associate Professor Anton Moiseienko (ANU) (primary supervisor), Prof Louis De Koker (La Trobe University) and Prof Saskia Hufnagel (University of Sydney). Other academics involved in the project include Dr Jamie Ferrill (Charles Sturt University), Associate Professor Doron Goldbarsht (Macquarie Univeristy), Prof Christian Leuprecht (Queen’s University, Canada) and Tom Keatinge (Royal United Services Institute, UK). The PhD scholar will also get exposure to a broader network of project advisory board members and interviewees.

Scholarship

The ANU Law School will provide the successful candidate with a tuition fee waiver and a stipend in the amount of $38,154 per annum over three years. The PhD scholar will also be able to separately apply for research assistant opportunities as part of the project. 

Due to the funding conditions, this position is only open to domestic candidates, i.e. Australian citizens or permanent residents.

Candidate Profile

The successful candidate will have:

• Excellent academic credentials in law, i.e. a high-quality undergraduate law degree and LLM;
• An interest in sanctions or financial crime; and
• Proven ability to conduct high-quality independent research.

Application and Timelines

Applications should be made by email to Anton Moiseienko at anton.moiseienko@anu.edu.auby 9.00am AEDT on Monday 2 March 2026, and include:

• A motivation letter (2 pages maximum);
• CV; and
• A brief essay addressing the following issue (3 pages maximum):

What criteria determine whether a sanctioned person ‘controls’ property without owning it under Australian/Canadian/UK law? (Choose one)

Once the successful candidate is selected in early March, they will be required to develop a full PhD proposal with their supervisors’ guidance for submission by 15 April as per ANU Law’s HDR admissions procedure. The award of the scholarship is conditional on admission upon the submission of the proposal.

Please contact anton.moiseienko@anu.edu.au with any questions.