This is the newsletter of the Southeast Asia Law and Policy Forum at UNSW Law Faculty. The Forum aims to foster and support research on law and politics in the Southeast Asia.
What's in this issue?
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Upcoming Events and Visitors
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Tuesday 23 July: Forum Meeting
On Tues 23rd July from 2-3pm in Room 204 of the Law Faculty we will hold a meeting of the Southeast Asia Law & Policy Forum. Anyone who is broadly affiliated with the group and various activities it has held over the past five years is welcome. This will be a chance to meet as a group, take stock, and think about where we want the group to head
Tuesday 6 August: Ethnography Reading Group
The next Ethnography Reading Group will be on Tues 6th August from 2-3pm in Room 249 of the Law Faculty. We will read Stephen Lubet's Interrogating Ethnography: Why Evidence Matters (2017) (keep in mind, this book is highly controversial and the point is to consider defences to his arguments against ethnography). The ebook should be available in the UNSW library very shortly.
Wednesday 14th August: Southeast Asia Reading Group
On Wed 14th August from 10:30an -11:30am in Room 249 in the UNSW Law building, we will be reading Adriaan Bedner's article on 'The Autonomy of Law in Indonesia' (2016). Please email Melissa if you need a copy of this piece.
Now until Friday 1 November: Call for Papers and Panels for the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) Conference 2020, University of Melbourne
We would love to welcome submissions of panels or papers on any aspect of legal research, but particularly law and society. Melissa Crouch and Jianlin Chen are the Law disciplinary champions for the ASAA 2020 in Melbourne. The call for papers and panels closes on Friday 1st November 2019.
15 to 16 November: Protecting Rights, Addressing Inequality Workshop
This workshop seeks to investigate the history, development and variation of writs as a form of constitutional adjudication, following its transformation from the common law remedies of England to a constitutional means of protecting rights across South Asia, but also in parts of Africa, the Pacific and the Caribbean. The Law School, Gilbert & Tobin Centre, and the Southeast Asia Law & Policy Forum are delighted to be partnering with Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and its Rule of Law Programme Asia as the key sponsor for this event. Please register at Eventbrite.
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Recent Events: The 2019 Women in Asia Conference
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On 20-23 June 2019, UNSW Law and the Institute for Global Development hosted the Women in Asia Conference.
Over several days we hosted 150 presenters in seven panel streams; and in addition we held two research methods master classes; a distinguished public lecture; an early career workshop with nine outstanding speakers to an audience of 80 participants; two sub-regional council AGMs, and a side event on China. This involved close to 300 people across all these events.
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The speakers came from over 14 countries in Asia, including India, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, China and Korea. The speakers were drawn from at least 29 universities in the region, including the National University of Malaysia, Islamic University of Jambi, Muhammadiyah University, University of North Sumatra, the University of Indonesia; State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah; Indonesian Ministry of Finance; Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Gadjah Mada University Indonesia, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Nanyang Technological University, Ewha Woman’s University Seoul, the University of Hong Kong, University of Colombo, Maharashtra National Law University, Meijo University, Yonsei University; Bunkyo Gakuin University, University of Syiah Kuala; Flame University (India), Jawaharlal Nehru University University of Lambung Mangkurat, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Women University; Lahore College for Women University; National University of Singapore, Singapore Management University, University of the Philippines, Zhejiang University, Ochanomizu University, and Massey University.
We were delighted to host distinguished guests Judge Saitip Sukatipan, Office of the Administrative Court, Thailand, and Judge Selma Alaras the Presiding Judge of the Regional Trial Court, Makati City, Philippines.
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There are many outstanding researchers and students connected to the Southeast Asia Law & Policy Forum and various events we have run. Here is an introduction to their expertise.
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Indri Saptraningrun is an experienced legal researcher, human rights advocate and PhD candidate at the Law Faculty of the University of New South Wales, Australia. Her thesis is entitled ‘From Government to Governance: The Politics of Indonesia’s Digital Content Policies post- 2008.’ Indri is the former Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (known as ELSAM), a prominent civil society organization based in Jakarta, Indonesia. She is a recipient of the prestigious Australian Awards Scholarship and The British Chevening Award. She has been the author of the Indonesia chapter of the ‘Freedom on the Net Report’, Freedom House (2016–present). She has contributed to numerous research reports, including the Report on the Performance and Establishment of National Human Rights Institutions in Asia (2008); A Gender Responsive Parliament: A Handbook on Gender Mainstreaming in the Legislature (UNDP Indonesia, 2008), as well as numerous other policy papers.
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Milda Istiqomah is a PhD Candidate at the Law Faculty, University of New South Wales, Australia. Her PhD thesis is ‘Factors Contributing to Terrorism Sentencing Decisions in Indonesia.’ Milda obtained an undergraduate degree in law from Brawijaya University, Indonesia, before continuing her studies, completing a Master of Transnational Crime Prevention from the University of Wollongong, Australia. Milda is also a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Brawijaya University, Indonesia, teaching criminal law and criminology. She also researches on terrorism, deradicalisation programs, countering violent extremism as well as sentencing patterns and trends in terrorism offences, with a specialisation in Indonesia.
Milda has been awarded numerous grants and awards, including Master Program scholarship from the Ministry of Higher Degree and Research of Indonesia as well as PhD Program scholarship from the Ministry of Finance of Indonesia. Milda was the Chief Investigator on a Ministry of Higher Degree and Research Grant on ‘Deradicalisation Program in Indonesian Prisons: Reformation on the Correctional Institutions.’ (2012 – 2015). Her work has been published in a range of peer-reviewed journals including US-China Law Review, and Indonesia journals such as Arena Hukum, Jurnal Media Hukum as well as Risalah Hukum. Milda is the deputy director of the Centre for Transnational Crime and Terrorism (Frontier), Brawijaya University. She is also a member of the Centre for Crime, Law and Justice, UNSW Law, member of ANZSOC (Australian New Zealand Society of Criminology) and member of ASAA (Asian Studies Association of Australia).
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Chhunvoleak is a current PhD student at the University of New South Wales. Her research is titled “Case Management and Access to Justice for Commercial Litigation in Cambodia”. Voleak has extensive experience in the Cambodian judicial system. From 2009 to 2014, Voleak worked at the Kandal Provincial Court, before being promoted to the Appellate Court in 2014.The Appellate Court is responsible for all cases appealed from the municipal and provincial courts, and the military court. In her court work, Voleak engaged in handling, processing, judicial decision making, enforcing judgments in a range of court cases, including civil and criminal cases. Her work also involved closely monitoring court administration, as well as participation in the judicial reform project.
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Lena Hanifah is currently undertaking her PhD at UNSW Law on ‘Islamic inheritance law in Indonesia: The experience of women'. She is an academic from the State Islamic University of Banjarmasin, Kalimantan.
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Natasha Yacoub is a Doctoral candidate at the University of New South Wales and affiliate of the Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law. Her thesis is titled: ‘Rethinking the history of refugee protection in Southeast Asia: Law, policy and practice’. Ms Yacoub is presently on leave from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, where she has been posted since 2001 in conflict and non-conflict settings in Egypt, Sudan, Ireland, United Nations Headquarters New York, Myanmar, Australia and the Pacific Island States. She also served as a decision-maker on the Refugee Review Tribunal and Migration Review Tribunal in Australia from 2012 to 2014. Her research interests are 'regional refugee protection', refugee status determination, statelessness, protection of civilians and the protection of refugee women and girls.
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Ashraful Azad is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales. He completed BSS and MSS in International Relations from the University of Chittagong and MPhil in International Law from Monash University. He is also an assistant professor in the Department of International Relations, University of Chittagong (currently on study leave to pursue PhD). His experience also includes working as a UNHCR protection staff in 2011-12 and as a research consultant with Equal Rights Trust, UK in 2015 where he wrote a report on the legal status of Rohingya in Bangladesh. Ashraful’s main research interests are Rohingya refugees, irregular migration, and labour migration in Bangladesh. His PhD research focuses on the migration of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh to Malaysia and the response of states towards such migration. This research analyses the irregular migration of stateless people and connects the mobility between South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Ashraful has published several peer-reviewed papers including in the Journal of Human Trafficking, Griffith Journal of Law and Human Dignity and Chittagong University Journal of Social Sciences. He has also published short pieces in the Conversation and OpenDemocracy and commented in various media including Guardian (UK), Equal Times (Brussels), the Independent and Bangladesh Post (Bangladesh), ABC radio and TV (Australia), TRT World (Turkey), and Channel NewsAsia (Singapore). He also works as a Country of Origin Information expert for Bangladesh enlisted with the Rights in Exile Programme (IRRI) and has provided expert reports in several asylum cases.
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Katherine Chork is an undergraduate law student at the University of New South Wales. She is in her penultimate year of combined Bachelor of Arts/Law. She works as a research assistant at UNSW Law. In her Arts degree Katherine completed a major in Hispanic Studies, as well as a minor in Advanced French studies. She was recognised by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Deans List in 2014, 2015 and 2017 for academic excellence. In 2016, she was a recipient of the UNSW International Student Exchange Scholarship and undertook a semester exchange at La Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid, Spain. During this time she completed courses in a diploma in International Relations from a Spanish Perspective. Katherine’s legal interest include both commercial and public interest fields. In 2016, she was a winter clerk at Marque Lawyers, continuing as a paralegal assisting the corporate and commercial teams in 2017 and 2018. In 2016, she contributed to a submission by the UNSW Law Society for the Senate inquiry into the conditions and treatment of asylum seekers and refugees at the regional processing centres in the Republic of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. She was also named on the Faculty of Law Dean’s List in 2017, achieving first place in Law and Social Theory, for which she wrote a research essay applying Giorgio Agamben’s theory of the camp to Australia’s asylum seeker policy.
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Natasha Naidu is a BA/LLB (Hons I) graduate from the University of New South Wales, Australia. Her research interest focuses on the rule of law in South and Southeast Asia. Currently, she is a research assistant at UNSW Law. In 2017, Natasha worked as an intern on defence of an alleged Khmer Rouge genocidaire at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). Since then she has published journal articles on political interference at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). Her commentary on the ECCC has been published in academic blogs such as New Mandala. Further, she works as a case analyst at the Oxford Reports on International Law where she specialises in publishing headnotes on ECCC decisions. Since returning from Cambodia, Natasha has been involved in activism together with the Australia-Cambodian diaspora and other Australian citizens concerned about the political climate in Cambodia. These actions have been covered by media including the Phnom Penh Post and Voice of Democracy (Khmer). Natasha also has an interest in gender empowerment in South and Southeast Asia. Currently, she assists on a project which focuses on women’s empowerment and gender equality among the legal profession and the judiciary in Asia. Natasha will soon return to Cambodia where she will take up a legal consultancy working for Project Expedite Justice, an NGO litigating on behalf of victims of mass atrocities such as human trafficking. She has published in New Mandala, the UNSW Law Journal, and Court of Conscious. Natasha can be found on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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Sai Myint Aung is a final year JD student at UNSW Law. He is a research assistant and a peer tutor at UNSW Law. He has also worked as a paralegal in Financial Restructuring and Insolvency Team at Norton Rose Fulbright, Sydney Office. Prior to commencing his law degree, Sai was an operations manager at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), Myanmar Branch, overseeing payment and cash operations as well as markets operations. Previously, he was a project manager in the project to establish the Myanmar Branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (ICBC). He was born and brought up in Taunggyi in eastern Myanmar and has a bachelor’s degree in economics from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Master of Professional Accounting from UNSW. His research interests include law and development, law and society, and comparative constitutional law.
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Madelene Wonders is a Juris Doctor graduate from UNSW and a Master of Human Rights and a Bachelor of Arts (Philosophy) graduate from the University of Sydney. Currently, she is a research assistant on Dr Melissa Crouch's ARC Discovery Project on Constitutional Change in Authoritarian Regimes. Madelene will also begin as the 2019-20 Human Rights Fellow at Legal Aid NSW in September.
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UNSW Law Southeast Asia Alumni network
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UNSW Law has many successful alumni from Southeast Asia. Here are a few of their profiles. If you know of other alumni who would like to be connected to this network, please let us know. |
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Bhatara Ibnu Reza completed his PhD at UNSW Law in 2019 on ‘The development of the state-sponsored militia as the implementation of the total people's defence and security system in Indonesia’. He was formerly a senior researcher at Imparsial, a prominent legal NGO in Jakarta, Indonesia. He comments frequently in the media on issues of law and human rights in Indonesia. He now works as an academic at a university based in Jakarta.
Dr Melissa Jardine was awarded her PhD at UNSW Law in 2019. She is on the Board of Directors for the Global Law Enforcement & Public Health Association and Gender Advisor & Communications Manager for the Centre for Law Enforcement & Public Health. Melissa was a Victoria Police officer for 10 years (2001-2011) working at the frontline and in criminal investigations and is a current member of the Strategic Planning Committee for the International Association of Women Police (IAWP). In Victoria Police, she worked in general duties, criminal investigations, the Asian Squad (disbanded), drug taskforces and trained as an undercover operative. In 2005, she was the recipient of a scholarship to study Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, from the Victorian Multicultural Commission while working for Victoria Police. Her PhD was on policing in Vietnam. In 2018-2019, Melissa is a consultant to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and UN Women in relation to gender, policing, border control and transnational crimes in ASEAN. Melissa has written and delivered a range of international police training packages regarding HIV prevention, harm reduction approaches to drug use and sex work, and police-public health leadership. In 2017, Melissa was selected as an Asia 21 Young Leader by the Asia Society.
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Fritz Edward Siregar is an alumni of UNSW Law and in June 2017 was a visiting fellow at UNSW Law. In 2017, he was appointed by the President of Indonesia to an important post on the Indonesian Elections Supervisory Board (2017–2022). Fritz completed his LL.B. from the Faculty of Law, the University of Indonesia. He holds a LL.M degree from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam and the University of New South Wales. In 2016, he completed his SJD at UNSW on judicial behaviour and judicialisation of Indonesia Constitutional Court, receiving the Australian Leadership Award. From 2004–2009, Fritz was part of the founding generation of staff on the Indonesia Constitutional Court as a Justice Assistant to Justice Maruarar Siahaan. In 2006, he was selected as the first foreigner to work as an intern as Judicial Associate at the High Court of Australia. He also previously worked at the International Monetary Fund’s project on legal reform in Indonesia. Fritz has been a lecturer at several institutions, including the University of Indonesia, Indonesia Jentera School of Law, Swiss German University and the Christian University of Indonesia. Fritz has a particular interest in election studies, which began with his involvement in the Election Supervisory Committee in 1999. In 2004 Fritz joined the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), where he undertook the role of rule of law project officer. Fritz currently serves as Commissioner of Indonesia’s Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu), an independent body responsible for supervising the election process, and disputes regarding the election process and administrative violations. Fritz coordinates Bawaslu’s legal division, which handled legal drafting related to the Bawaslu Regulations and the election result disputes in the Constitutional Court.
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Phyo Mouk is an alumni of the University of New South Wales, where he obtained a Masters of Laws in Dispute Resolution, specialising in corporate and commercial law. Since returning to Myanmar, Phyo now works as a Judicial Officer in the Supreme Court Union of Myanmar in the Law and Procedure Department. He is currently heavily involved in the Supreme Court Project, including as a member of the working group for the implementation and introduction of the Court-Led Mediation Program. He is also involved in the discussion on the reform of arbitration in Myanmar, attending numerous seminars and workshops in this area. Phyo was also involved in the drafting of Myanmar’s new intellectual property law. In addition to his work as a judicial officer, Phyo is involved in promoting public awareness of mediation as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism in Myanmar, such as the creation of promotional media for Court-led mediation programs. In 2020, Phyo will commence his PhD in Japan.
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Yin Myo Su Hlaing is an Assistant Director form the Union Attorney General’s Office (UAGO) in Myanmar. She graduated from Monywa University with LLB in 2004. After that, she obtained a LL.M from Yangon University in 2007 with a specialization in International Law. In 2017, she also obtained a Master of Laws from University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia with a specialization in Human Rights and Social Justice. She had the professional prosecutorial experiences to the Courtrooms because she served in Yangon Western District Law Office as a Deputy Staff Officer and Mayangon Township Law Office in Yangon as a Deputy Township Law Officer from 2009 - 2012. In 2013, she had been promoted to Staff Officer in the International law and ASEAN Legal Affairs Division at the UAGO in Nay Pyi Taw. In 2016, she was promoted to Assistant Director in the above Division. She was also conferred the medal for prevalence of law and order. In addition, she obtained a certificate of Advocate from the Supreme Court of Union in 2019. She is a member of the working group to implement the functions of Union Coordination Body (UCB) for Rule of Law Centre and Justice Sector Affairs, a member of the research team of the UAGO and a member to upgrade the English-Myanmar Law Dictionary.
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National Library of Australia Asia Study Grants 2020 are now open to PhD, early career or established scholars attached to an Australian academic institution. The grants are to assist scholars to undertake short-term intensive research in any field in the Library’s Asian language and Asia-related collections.
Asian Law and Society Association 2019 Graduate Student Article Award (e.g. PhD, LLM students). Please encourage any of your graduate students who have published an article on law and society in Asia to consider applying for this award. Nominations are due by the 30th August 2019 (Tokyo time).
Details: The Asian Law & Society Association (ALSA) is delighted to announce that it is accepting nominations for the 2019 ALSA Graduate Student Article Award. Please kindly find below details about the award, and nomination requirements and procedure.
1. Eligibility: To be eligible to be nominated for the award, a paper must meet the following criteria:
- A. The author(s) is/are candidate(s)/student(s) who is/are enrolled in a postgraduate degree program, Master degree or Doctoral degree, in an institution of higher education or is/are within one calendar year of graduation from such program;
- B. For a co-authored paper, all authors must comply with item A above;
- C. The paper was written and completed during the author's/authors' candidature in the above-mentioned postgraduate program;
- D. The paper must be written in English;
- E. The paper must be on law and society in Asia; and
- F. The paper must meet one of the following two criteria:
- i. It was published or has been accepted for publication in a journal (that has an ISSN) or a book (that has an ISBN) within the period of January 1st 2018- June 30th 2019; OR
- ii. It is a paper with full referencing, which (a) has been submitted to a journal (with ISSN) within the period of January 1st 2018- June 30th 2019 for publication consideration and is nominated for the award by a faculty member of an institution of higher education; or (b) was completed within the period of January 1st 2018- June 30th 2019 and is nominated, for the award, by the dean, relevant associate dean, department head, department chair, graduate chair or a comparable counterpart of the relevant department/school/faculty/centre of the institution in which the author(s) is/are enrolled.
2. Authors and nominators need not be members of the Asian Law & Society Association.
3. Nomination: Nominations are to be sent to Mari Hirayama, the Chair of the 2019 ALSA Graduate Student Article Award Committee, at ma07@fc.hakuoh.ac.jp by August 30th 2019 (Tokyo time).
A nomination must include the following:
i. an electronic copy of the paper (in PDF format);
ii. a description (in no more than 250 words) of the merits of the paper;
iii. (if the paper has been published) full citation information of the paper; and
iv. (if the paper has been accepted for publication but has not been published yet) a proof/evidence of the acceptance for publication, which must be in English.
4. Deadline for nominations: August 30th, 2019 (Tokyo time).
5. Self-nomination is accepted for a paper under item 1 F i above (i.e. a paper that was published or has been accepted for publication in a journal (that has an ISSN) or a book (that has an ISBN) within the period of 1 January 2018 - 30 June 2019 but NOT papers under item 1 F ii above.
6. Announcement of the Award: Up to two Awards and up to two Honorary Mentions will be announced in the first week of October 2019.
7. Award Ceremony: An award ceremony will be held at the closing session of the 2019 ALSA Conference (http://alsa.sakura.ne.jp/pg83.html) on December 15th, 2019 at Osaka University, Osaka, Japan. The Asian Law & Society Association regrets that it will not be able to provide any travel grant or subsidy.
8. Free ALSA membership 2020-2021: Award and Honorary Mention recipient(s) will receive free membership in the Asian Law & Society Association for the two calendar years of 2020 and 2021.
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