Associate Professor Michelle Foster

Dr Michelle Foster is an Associate Professor and Director of the International Refugee Law Research Programme in the Institute for International Law and the Humanities at Melbourne Law School.  Her teaching and research interests are in the areas of public law, international refugee law, and international human rights law.  Michelle has LLM and SJD degrees from the University of Michigan Law School, where she was a Michigan Grotius Fellow. She also holds an LLB and BComm (Hons 1 and the University Medal) from the University of New South Wales. Prior to her graduate studies she worked for the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department, as Research Director for the Hon AM Gleeson AC (then Chief Justice of NSW) and Legal Research Officer in the Chambers of the NSW Solicitor-General and Crown Advocate.  

Michelle has published widely in the field of international refugee law, and her work has been cited extensively in the international refugee law literature and also in judicial decisions in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Her most important contribution to date has been her book, International Refugee Law and Socio-Economic Rights: Refuge from Deprivation, published by Cambridge University Press in 2007, which has been widely and favourably reviewed. Since joining Melbourne Law School in 2005, Michelle has developed a new curriculum in Refugee Law in both the LLB and LLM degrees. She has conducted training workshops for the New Zealand Refugee Status Appeals Authority and the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal, and has been involved in consultation with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship concerning new directions for refugee law and policy in Australia.  Michelle is an Advisory Board Member of the Melbourne Journal of International Law, an Associate Member of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges and the National Co-ordinator (with Justice Tony North) of the Australian sub-site of the Michigan-Melbourne Refugee caselaw Site (http://www.refugeecaselaw.org/default.asp).

Michelle's current research project is an ARC funded project (with Professor James Hathaway) entitled, The Law of Refugee Status: A Theoretical and Comparative Analysis.  The project will run from 2010-2012.

Michelle Foster, ‘An Alien by the Barest of Threads’: The Legality of the Deportation of Long-Term Residents from Australia', (2009) 33(2) Melbourne University Law Review, 483-541. 

Michelle Foster, 'Non-refoulement on the basis of Socio-Economic Deprivation: The Scope of Complementary Protection in International Human Rights Law', (2009)  Part II New Zealand Law Review, 257-310.

Michelle Foster, ‘Refugee Law’ in Ian Freckelton and Hugh Selby, Appealing to the Future: Michael Kirby and his Legacy, 686-720 (Sydney: Thompson, 2009).

J C. Hathaway and and M. Foster, 'Internal Protection/Relocation/Flight Alternative as an Aspect of Refugee Status Determination' in E. Feller et al (ed), Refugee Protection in International Law: UNHCR's Global Consultations on International Protection, Cambridge University Press (2003) 353-413 (http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521825740); republished as ‘La possibilité de protection interne/ réinstallation interne/ fuite interne comme aspect de la procédure de determination du statut de réfugié’ in E. Feller et al eds., La protection des réfugiés en droit international 403-473 (Larcier, 2008)

• Human Rights Law
• International Law
• Refugee Law