Dr Jade Roberts

Overview

Dr Jade Roberts is a Lecturer at Melbourne Law School and a Research Fellow at the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness. Her research and teaching explore the position of the individual in international law through examining the intersections of international statelessness law, international refugee law, international criminal law and international human rights law.

Jade’s PhD thesis examined alternative approaches to understanding and addressing statelessness in international law. Jade was the joint winner of the Harold Luntz Graduate Research Thesis Prize for 2024, awarded annually to the Melbourne Law School graduate research student judged to have presented the best thesis in the previous year. She was also the recipient of the 2025 Alice Edwards Breakthrough Researcher Award, awarded by the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law to an early career researcher whose research in international law is making, or is likely to make, a significant contribution to finding solutions to some of the world’s most pressing global or regional challenges.

Jade has a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Arts with majors in Political Science and International Relations and Anthropology and Sociology from the University of Western Australia (UWA), where she was a UWA Fogarty Foundation Scholar. She has a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice, is admitted as a solicitor in Victoria and has worked in the Social Justice Practice of Shine Lawyers.

Jade also has a Graduate Diploma in Australian Migration Law and Practice and served as a Registered Migration Agent assisting asylum seekers apply for protection with The Humanitarian Group and the Southern Communities Advocacy Legal and Education Service, two community law centres in Western Australia.

Jade has a Master’s in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and her master’s thesis examined international law responses to environmental displacement. She has lectured in international human rights law in Geneva with Murdoch University and has worked as an English language teacher, and she holds a Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults.

Prior to joining Melbourne Law School, Jade worked in research roles with the Global Migration Centre, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.

As a Research Fellow at the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Jade undertakes research, teaching and engagement activities aimed at reducing statelessness and protecting the rights of stateless people in Australia, the Asia Pacific region and globally. She is a Critique and Comment Editor of the Statelessness and Citizenship Review.

Memberships and affiliations

• Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness
• Critique and Comment Editor of the Statelessness and Citizenship Review
• Institute for International Law and the Humanities
• Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law