Professor Anne Orford

Overview

Anne Orford is Melbourne Laureate Professor and Michael D Kirby Chair of International Law at Melbourne Law School, and Visiting Professor of Law and John Harvey Gregory Lecturer on World Organization at Harvard Law School. She researches and teaches in the areas of international law, international dispute settlement, international economic law, climate change, and the history and theory of international law. She is a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and a past President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law. She has been a Visiting Legal Fellow at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and an international expert adviser on climate change and international law to the Pacific Islands Forum. She presented a Special Course at the Hague Academy of International Law in 2021, and was elected to the Institut de Droit International in 2025.

In addition to visiting at Harvard Law School since 2019, she has been a Visiting Professor of Law at Université Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne), Hedda Andersson Visiting Chair at Lund University, the Raoul Wallenberg Visiting Chair in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, Torgny Segerstedt Visiting Professor at the University of Gothenburg, Senior Emile Noël Research Fellow at NYU School of Law, and the Olof Palme Visiting Professor at Stockholm University.

Her latest book, International Law and the Politics of History (Cambridge University Press, 2021), was awarded the 2022 European Society of International Law Monograph Prize for Excellence in International Law Scholarship.  Reviewers have called it ‘a kind of legacy book, a testimony to what it means to engage in history as an international lawyer’ that displays ‘intellectual leadership in our current moment’ (Jury Decision, European Society of International Law Monograph Prize 2022); ‘the most innovative and thought-provoking proposal for a tectonic shift in the way international law thinks about itself in recent memory’ (Alonso Gurmendi, Opinio Juris); ‘brilliantly conceived, meticulously researched, and masterfully executed … a ground-breaking text worthy of sustained attention’ (Jeffrey Dunoff, Temple International and Comparative Law Journal); ‘a liberation’ and ‘an inspired and inspiring call for reflexivity on the politics of methods’ (Francisco-José Quintana and Sarah Nouwen, Temple International and Comparative Law Journal), ‘a major touchstone in the debate about the history of international law and its significance for understanding world politics’ (Dennis Schmidt, International Affairs); ‘of great interest not only for academics working on international legal histories, but also those who seek to reflect on the multiple tasks of jurists, the roles of legal scholarship, and the connection between what one regards as a good method and what one perceives to be a good life’ (Phil Saengkrai, Asian Journal of International Law); ‘an aggressive intellectual war against professional historians, cheekily insisting that these rowdy upstarts required a massive show of writerly force’ (Samuel Moyn, American Journal of International Law); ‘a must-read for every international law scholar of the Global South and other non-Western geographies’ (Vijay Kishor Tiwari, Chinese Journal of International Law); ‘often brilliant (and even funny)’ (Kunal Parker, Temple International and Comparative Law Journal), ‘a major statement on international legal methodology from one of the field’s most astute and creative scholars’ (Natasha Wheatley, Temple International and Comparative Law Journal), and ‘a remarkable book, a Kampfschrift of sorts, on the study of the history of international law and the ideological struggles related to it’ (Lauri Mälksoo, Temple International and Comparative Law Journal).

Her other books include International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect (Cambridge University Press, 2011), Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2003), Revolutions in International Law: The Legacies of 1917 (Cambridge University Press, 2021) (co-edited with Kathryn Greenman, Anna Saunders, and Ntina Tzouvala), and The Oxford Handbook of the Theory of International Law (Oxford University Press, 2016) (co-edited with Florian Hoffmann).

She has been awarded honorary doctorates in law by Lund University, the University of Gothenburg, and the University of Helsinki, the Woodward Medal for Excellence in Humanities and Social Sciences by the University of Melbourne, and three Australian Research Council fellowships, including the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship. She has presented over 50 named public lectures, keynote speeches, and plenary addresses, including at conferences of the American Society of International Law, the Asian Society of International Law, the Australian Historical Association, the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law, the European Society of International Law, the French Society of International Law, the Korean Society of International Law, and the US Law and Society Association.

Over the past three decades, she has supervised a group of dynamic doctoral and postdoctoral researchers who have gone on to become leading international legal scholars and practitioners. She has established and directed two influential research groups as Foundation Director of the Institute for International Law and the Humanities and Director of the Laureate Program in International Law, both at Melbourne Law School. She has also made a significant contribution to research training and mentoring for early career researchers in her field globally, including as founding co-convenor of the Annual Junior Faculty Forum for International Law. As Director of the Laureate Program in International Law, she created a global visiting fellowship program that enabled 27 outstanding early career researchers to come from Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, the UK, and the US to work with her team in Melbourne.