From mitochondrial donation to human-centred design in the legal process, scholars at Monash Law have continued to lead and contribute to research that benefits our communities, society and the environment. In 2023 Monash Law academics received approximately $2 million dollars in research funding, which has contributed to a broad variety of research outcomes.

Monash Law Research Projects With Impact

Associate Professor Karinne Ludlow

Associate Professor Ludlow is part of a groundbreaking project that has been awarded $15 million of funding by the Government’s Medical Research Future Fund. Around 50 Australian children are born every year with devastating mitochondrial disease (mito) with an expected lifespan of only five years.  This project will be the first Australian clinical trial of mitochondrial donation (and only second in the world). The technique provides hope to Australian families affected by mito and has the potential to prevent children from being born with mitochondrial disease. The mitoHOPE (Healthy Outcomes Pilot and Evaluation) Program includes mitochondrial and reproductive researchers as well as clinical geneticists and embryologists from around Australia.

Karinne will undertake extensive research of all eight state/territory regulatory frameworks and legislation for readiness for the introduction of Mitochondrial Donation into clinical practice in each jurisdiction. This can guide the reform of state legislation as required. This major project also follows on from the release of Karinne’s edited book with Oxford University Press, “Reproduction Reborn: How science, ethics and law shape mitochondrial replacement”.

Monash Law Research Projects With Australian Research Council (ARC) Funding

Professor Jonathan Clough 
Professor Clough is leading an interdisciplinary team from the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University on his project: Improving Legal Frameworks to Support Online Child Sex Abuse Prosecutions. This project aims to gain a deeper understanding of the nature and extent of online child sexual abuse prosecutions in Australia. The project will generate new knowledge concerning the suitability of Australia's legal and policy frameworks to effectively investigate and prosecute such offences, with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific region and the use of new technologies. Expected outcomes include evidence-based recommendations on criminal law reform and enforcement policy that aim to improve the international enforcement of online child sexual abuse offences, and to provide a model for other forms of serious transnational online crime

Professor Luke Beck & Professor Melissa Castan

Professors Beck and Castan are working on a collaborative ARC LIEF grant aimed at simplifying the task of understanding the Australian Constitution and its drafting process. The expected outcomes of the project are an open access, online interface that consolidates, corrects and enhances the digital record of the Constitutional Conventions and the processes associated with them. Collaborators from various other universities are also involved.

Associate Professor Genevieve Grant

This project, (Re)Designing Digital Justice, aims to address the challenge of (re)designing novel online court systems by introducing a human-centred design process to the legal process. This project will generate fundamental new knowledge in respect of how to effectively design an inclusive justice system, bridging the gap between the legal system and human-computer interaction. Expected outcomes include how to use technology to implement a more just, efficient, and fair legal system, which is accessible to all Australians. This should provide significant benefits for both Australian society and the legal system. Associate Professor Grant is working with colleagues from the Faculty of IT, the Department of Psychology and Monash Law partner - the South-East Monash Legal Service (SMLS).

Dr Nadir Hosen 

Dr Hosen’s project aims to investigate why predictable and fair contract enforcement in Indonesia is so inaccessible, particularly for foreign investors. He is collaborating with colleagues at the University of Melbourne and Swinburne University of Technology.

Associate Professor Gerry Nagtzaam Associate Professor Nagtzaam is working with international collaborators as well as the Faculty of IT at Monash to develop Assessments for writing with generative artificial intelligence. This project aims to develop a novel assessment framework for writing with generative artificial intelligence—a new technology capable of producing text with human-like fluency. This project endeavours to produce new knowledge at the intersection of learning analytics, the learning sciences, and educational technology using innovative methods for data capture and analysis. Expected outcomes of this project include the first valid, feasible, and reliable framework for assessing writing composed with the help of artificial intelligence. This should provide significant benefits to (a) writing assessment in higher education, (b) student learning, and (c) our understanding of collaborations between humans and artificial intelligence.

Monash Law Research Projects With Other Funding 

Professor Daniel Fitzpatrick leads a body of work that considers land, climate and conflict intersections in a number of jurisdictions in the Global South.  This research on land tenure and disaster displacement led to commissioned research by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) to prepare a Research Brief developing policy tools for Land Tenure and Climate Mobility in the Pacific Region.

Dr Mel Marquis carried out research, funded by the ACCC, that takes account of Thai law and Thai business practices, and provides recommendations as to how competition law should be applied to distribution agreements in Thailand across the ASEAN region. As part of this research project, and as part of Australia’s engagement with ASEAN competition authorities, Dr Marquis also travelled to Bangkok to furnish training for officials of the Trade Competition Commission of Thailand.

Dr Jess Mant and Associate Professor Genevieve Grant are part of a team led by the Monash Business School's Department of Business Law and Taxation and the Victorian Law Foundation on commissioned work for the Victorian Legal Services Board + Commissioner (VLSB+C) to examine the factors that influence the pricing of legal services, how practitioners communicate with clients about anticipated costs, and how service costs, and communications about costs, affect the lawyer-client relationship.

Monash Law International Fellowships

Professor Jean Allain is travelling on a Visiting Professorial Fellowship to the University of Nottingham in 2023 and 2024. The fellowship is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. This philanthropic trust was established in 1925 and funds independent scholarship and studies of the legacy of colonialism, racism and other forms of (related) injustices. Jean will collaborate with the Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham, the world’s leading and largest group of human trafficking and modern slavery researchers.

Dr Monique Cormier was awarded an Asian Law Institute fellowship. She travelled to the National University of Singapore in October to research international law relating to nuclear weapons and nuclear energy and the implications of AUKUS for nuclear non-proliferation.

Monash Law Clinics Research Outcomes

Associate Professor Cate Banks and Monash Law Clinics received funding from the Victorian Law Foundation to investigate the legal needs of victim/survivors of family and domestic violence, the extent of checks and balances for family and domestic violence in guardianship matters and future legal measures that can assist to identify family and domestic violence.

Associate Professor Cate Banks has also been awarded one of four 2023/2024 Knowledge Grants from the Victorian Law Foundation. This project will assist in improving data collection practices, intake procedures and planning legal service delivery in family violence and/or the caring relationship context.  Cate aims to communicate her findings with partner organisations within Monash and externally such as the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, Monash Social Work, and cohealth.

A Monash University submission was made to the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme led by Joel Townsend (Director of the Monash Law Clinics) together with Professor Jeff Giddings, Dr Paul Burgess, Associate Professor Brendan Gogarty, Professor Chris Marsden, Associate Professor Yee-Fui Ng, and Emily Singh. With the conclusion of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme in July, the Commissioner Catherine Holmes AC SC presented a final Report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme to the Governor-General. This report extensively cited the work of the original submission made by Monash Law researchers.

Awards Presented to Monash Law Researchers

Monash University Vice Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence

Associate Professor Yee-Fui Ng has received the Monash Vice Chancellor's Award for Research Excellence by an Early Career Research (HASS). She is recognised as one of the leading experts in the areas of public law and political integrity in Australia and internationally. She has made 13 submissions to public inquiries in the last 5 years, which have led to invitations to appear as an expert witness, where her contributions were cited extensively by government and Parliament. Another important aspect of her work is commissioned reports for international organisations, federal and state governments, electoral commissions and anti-corruption commissions (funding totalling $473,000), which have achieved strong impact in terms of law reform.

Associate Professor Ng was also awarded a Fulbright scholarship for 2021-22 (one of only three Law scholars in Australia) and has increased her international connections through this program, including with AI litigators, empirical researchers and prominent political advisors.

Mollie Holman Award

The 2022 Mollie Holman Award for the best law thesis has been awarded to Dr Greg Byrne for his PhD thesis: A Jury-centric Approach: A Method for Improving Criminal Laws, Practices, and Procedures to Ensure Fair Jury Trials. Greg was supervised by Professor Jonathan Clough and Associate Professor Jacqui Horan.

Policy And Law Reform Outcomes from Monash Law Research

In February 2023, Dr Jess Mant, Associate Professor Becky Batagol, and Associate Professor Cate Banks provided evidence to the Attorney General's consultation on the new Family Law (Amendment) Bill 2023, which will reform the current Family Law Act. In May, Associate Professor Batagol and Dr Mant were invited to advise Zoe Daniels MP to help her to prepare her 2nd reading speech and propose amendments to the Bill. Their research was cited in the House of Representatives on 10 May 2023, and their proposed amendments were referred to a Senate Inquiry. In June, they provided evidence to the Senate Inquiry setting out justifications for the proposed amendments. The Senate cited their evidence extensively in their final report and recommended that one of these amendments be taken forward by the government. On 6 September 2023, Mark Dreyfus confirmed that the federal government would incorporate their amendment into the Bill and this is expected to pass into law in the next couple of months.

Graduate Research in Monash Law

2023 has been a busy year in our Graduate Research portfolio. Associate Professor Julie Debeljak, Director of Graduate Research, negotiated an international agreement that enables high-level academic scholars from the O.P. Jindal Global Law School to study externally as part of the Monash HDR program. We look forward to welcoming our first cohort.

We received 115 expressions of interest so far this year, with 16 students commencing or due to commence their studies, including 11 University and Faculty scholarship recipients. This reflects the quality of our HDR students. As of November, 10 students successfully completed their degrees in 2023.