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Dr Alison Pert

Profile


Degrees and Qualifications

LLB Manc LLM Lond PhD Sydney


Courses Taught

  • Public International Law
  • International law and the Use of Armed Force
  • International Law and Australian Institutions/International Law 2
  • Advanced Public International Law
  • Human Rights Law
  • Jurisdiction in International Law
  • Contracts


Research Interests

  • Use of Force
  • Jurisdiction
  • Immunity in International Law


Brief Biographical Details

Dr Alison Pert lectures in International Law and the Use of Armed Force at the University of Sydney. She also teaches public international law at post-graduate and undergraduate level, and previously lectured in international trade law at the ANU.

Dr Pert holds a PhD from the University of Sydney and an LLM from University College, London. She is admitted to practice in England and Wales, Papua New Guinea, the ACT, New South Wales, and the High Court of Australia.

After qualifying as a Barrister in England, she spent five years in Papua New Guinea, first as a volunteer with the British organisation Voluntary Service Overseas as a government lawyer in the Highlands, and subsequently in the Department of Justice in Port Moresby, advising on constitutional and provincial government matters and representing the government in these and electoral matters in the Supreme and National Courts. Returning to London she obtained her Masters' degree, specialising in international law, and completed her pupillage including six months with (then) Prof. Rosalyn Higgins.

On migrating to Australia she joined the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department, first in the Office of International Law and later heading the International Trade Law Section. She then moved into private practice as a commercial litigator with Minter Ellison in Canberra, during which time she lectured in international trade law at the ANU. Moving to Sydney she continued in private practice before joining the legal department of the Commonwealth Bank as a corporate lawyer. Her publications include the Australian chapter of Butterworths’ International Agency and Distribution Agreements (with Prof. Michael Pryles) and the Australian chapter of the International Chamber of Commerce publication Retention of title: a practical ICC guide to legislation in 35 countries.

Her doctoral thesis was on Australia’s record as a good international citizen, examined from a primarily international law perspective, from Federation through to the Howard government. She has since written on the good international citizenship of the Rudd government, in an article in the forthcoming volume of the Australian Yearbook of International Law.

Recently she has published opinion pieces in The Australian on Libya and Syria, and has made several television appearances commenting on the Assange affair.


Publications


Book Chapters

  • Pert, A, ‘Australia’, edited by International Chamber of Commerce, Retention of Title: a practical ICC Guide to legislation in 35 countries, Kluwer Law International: The Netherlands (1994)
  • Pert, A, ‘Australia’ (with Michael Pryles) in T Clasen and J Puchner (eds), International Agency and Distribution Agreement, LexisNexis Butterworths: Australia (1991)


Journal Articles


Submissions

  • Submission of the Law Council of Australia to the Commonwealth Government on the Hague Conference draft Convention on Jurisdiction and the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (1999)


Other Publications

  • ‘Syria mess highlights global weakness’, Opinion, The Australian Online, August 2012
  • ‘Legality blurred in Libya intervention’, Opinion, The Australian, April 2011
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