Campbell Russell: Launchpad to the world
50 Years / 50 Voices: Learning law and changing lives is a commemorative volume marking the 50th anniversary of the ongoing Monash Law Clinical Program, a pioneering initiative in clinical legal education undertaken by the Faculty of Law at Monash University. 50 alumni of the Monash Law Clinical Program shared their story with 50 current students of the same program. This is an excerpt from the book.
Campbell Russell began at Monash on the verge of abandoning law altogether. Initially drawn to engineering, he tentatively tacked on a law degree. ‘I like engineering because I like understanding how things work,’ he says. ‘Law also provides a lens to understand how the world works.’
‘But my plan was to drop law after first year if I didn’t enjoy it,’ he recalls. Everything changed when he encountered public law, taught by Associate Professor Eric Windholz, ‘and was hooked’.
‘I knew embarrassingly little about international law and the actual mechanisms of human rights law,’ he says. That changed when he joined Monash Law Clinics as part of the Afghanistan Support Clinic and Ham Diley Campaign. ‘Unfortunately, it’s easy to become a lawyer in Australia without a strong understanding of international law,’ he notes.
The Afghanistan Support Clinic was launched as an emergency response to the fall of Kabul in 2021. Students assisted evacuees with refugee visa applications. The clinic evolved into a long-term research and advocacy project. Russell joined later in 2021, and was soon immersed in questions of international accountability. His early clinic work focused on universal jurisdiction (UJ), a legal principle that allows national courts to prosecute serious international crimes regardless of where they occurred. ‘Given the significant delays in pursuing justice through the International Criminal Court, UJ offered a potential opportunity to hold members of the Taliban to account, or at least to impose some form of consequences, in other countries with established and impartial legal systems,’ he explains.
Read more about 50 years of Monash Law Clinics and buy 50 Years / 50 Voices here
Campbell Russell (left) celebrating his LLM graduation day with a friend at the University of Cambridge.
Russell contributed to a UJ handbook commissioned by the Ham Diley Campaign, and played a leading role in drafting chapters on legal theory, jurisdictional bases and limitations. He credits much of his development to the clinic’s supervisors, Azadah Raz Mohammad and Karin Frodé. ‘They are excellent legal scholars, generous with their time and inspiring role models,’ he says. ‘Their close supervision helped me grow to understand the huge field that is international law.’
Clinical work gave Russell something he hadn’t found in the classroom: ‘The opportunity to do real work impacting real people at an early stage in my career,’ he says. ‘The Afghanistan Support Clinic allowed me to research an incredibly interesting area of law for a vital purpose with world-class guidance. All I needed to do to have a voice was contribute.’
Russell’s clinic experience became a launchpad. He went on to intern with the Clooney Foundation for Justice, to contribute to Amnesty International’s opensource investigations and to research legal arguments for an advisory report to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights through the Cambridge Pro Bono Project.
Russell later completed a Master of Law at Cambridge University. A solicitor in Herbert Smith Freehills’ international arbitration team, Campbell Russell now works across Melbourne, Hong Kong, Tokyo and beyond on complex cross-border disputes.
‘Every person picks a life for themselves based on imperfect information – none of us knows everything that is out there for us,’ Russell observes. ‘Today’s world is increasingly conducive to career changes, but it is much easier to try new things at university. I would encourage all students to try a clinic whose purpose resonates with their values – in particular the Afghanistan Support Clinic, which is stronger than ever! – form strong relationships with their supervisors and use the opportunity to gauge whether they would be interested in a career in the area.’
Read more about 50 years of Monash Law Clinics and buy 50 Years / 50 Voices here