Bio
Miriam is Associate Professor of Public Law and Sustainability at the University of Copenhagen Faculty of Law. She is co-founder and director of the Nordic Network on Climate Related Displacement and Mobility and sits on the Advisory Committee to the Platform on Disaster Displacement. At the Faculty of Law, Miriam directs the course “Climate Change, Disaster and Human Mobility” and provides regular guest lectures in the Masters of Climate Change, the Masters of Disaster Management, and the Masters of Advanced Migration Studies, hosted at other Faculties. Miriam’s research critically examines whether and how law can advance resilience in the context of climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and sustainability, and avoid marginalisation and exclusion in those processes. She is particularly interested in notions of social sustainability, critical perspectives on international law and processes of decoloniality.
Before coming to academia, Miriam represented the Australian Government on the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, having independently negotiated a range of human rights resolutions, including those on social development, torture, and extreme poverty. Miriam has been a Visiting Professional in the Immediate Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, a consultant to the United Nations, and served for three years on the Board of Directors of TraumAid International. She has managed several Parliamentary Committee Inquiries and Law Reform Inquiries in Australia and held positions in the International Legal Division of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Miriam was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory.
Selected Publications
- 2023 - Miriam Cullen and Céline Brassart Olsen, ‘Climate Change and Human Rights in the Overseas Colonized Territories of the State’ in Dina Lupin (ed.) A Research Agenda for Human Rights and the Environment (Edward Elgar, 2023)
- 2023 - Miriam Cullen, ‘Climate Change, Colonialism and Human Rights in Greenland’ in Petra Butler (ed) Human Rights in Small States (Springer, 2022) (in press)
- 2023 - Miriam Cullen, ‘The Legal Relationship Between the UN and the International Organization for Migration: What has Changed After Their 2016 Relationship Agreement?’ in Megan Bradley, Cathryn Costello, and Angela Sherwood (eds), IOM Unbound? The International Organization For Migration in an Era of Expansion (Cambridge University Press, 2023) (in press)
- 2022 - Miriam Cullen and Jane Munro, ‘Preventing Disasters and Displacement: How Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Can Advance Local Resilience’ (2022) 40(1) Nordic Journal of Human Rights
- 2022 - Miriam Cullen, ‘The IOM’s Status as a “UN-related” Organization, and the Consequences for People Displaced by Climate Change’ in Avidan Kent and Simon Behrman (eds), Rectifying the Protection Gap for Climate Refugees (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
- 2020 - Miriam Cullen, ‘Disaster, Displacement and International Law: Legal Protections in the Context of a Changing Climate’ (2020, Special Issue on “The Politics of Disaster Governance”) 8(4) Politics and Governance 270
- 2018 - Miriam Cullen, ‘Eaten by the Sea: Human Rights Claims for the Impacts of Climate Change Upon Remote Subnational Communities’, Vol. 9, Iss. 2, Journal of Human Rights & the Environment (2018) 171