Bio
Professor Penelope (Pene) Mathew joined the Auckland Law School as Dean in March 2019. Specializing in international law and politics, she holds degrees from the University of Melbourne and Columbia Law School. Pene is an expert on international refugee law, has worked as a human rights lawyer, and published extensively in this field.
She has held academic roles at the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University, Michigan Law School and Griffith University, where she also served a four-year term as Dean and Head of Griffith Law School. She served for two years as legal and policy advisor to the Australian Capital Territory’s Human Rights Commission, leading the work on an audit of the territory’s remand centres, among other matters. In 2008, the ACT government awarded her an International Women’s Day Award for outstanding contributions to human rights and social justice. She has also worked on shorter contracts with the Jesuit Refugee Service, and as a consultant to the Australian Human Rights Commission and for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Select list of publications
- MATHEW P., & HARLEY T., Refugees, Regionalism and Responsibility (Elgar, 2016) (320 pages). (reviewed 19 International Community Law Review 366 (2017); 30 Journal of Refugee Studies 622 (2017); 8 Asian Journal of International Law 294 (2018); and 29 International Journal of Refugee Law 720 (2017.)
- MATHEW, P., Draft Dodger/ Deserter or Dissenter? Conscientious objection as grounds for refugee status, Contemporary Issues in Refugee Law ed., S. Juss & C. Harvey, Edward Elgar, 2013: pp 165 - 195.
- MATHEW, P., The Shifting Boundaries and Content of Protection: the Internal Flight Alternative Revisited, The Ashgate Research Companion to Migration Law, Theory and Policy ed., Satvinder Juss, (Ashgate, 2013): pp 189 – 208.
- MATHEW P., Reworking the Relationship between Asylum and Employment (Routledge, 2012) (200+ pages including appendix) (reviewed 26 International Journal of Refugee Law 315 (2014); cited by concurring individual opinion by Yuval Shany and Konstantine Vardzelashvili to the Human Rights Committee’s views in Warda Osman Jasin v Denmark).
- MATHEW, P. , - Limiting Good Faith: ‘Bootstrapping’ asylum seekers and exclusion from refugee protection, 29 Australian Yearbook of International Law 135 – 154 (2010).
- MATHEW, P. & participants in 5th Michigan Colloquium on Challenges in International Refugee Law, The Michigan Guidelines on The Right to Work, 31 Michigan Journal of International Law 293 – 305 (2010). (referred to in MA v Director of Immigration, High Court of Hong Kong, HCAL 100/2010 and MA and others v Director of Immigration, Court of Final Appeal Hong Kong, CACV 44/201.)
- MATHEW P., Resolution 1373 – a call to pre-empt asylum-seekers? (or “Osama the Asylum-Seeker”), Forced Migration, Human Rights and Security, ed., J. McAdam, Hart Publishing, 2008: pp 19-62.
- MATHEW, P., HATHAWAY, J.C., FOSTER. M., - The Role of State Protection in Refugee Analysis, Discussion Paper No. 2., Advanced Refugee Law Workshop, International Association of Refugee Law Judges, Auckland, New Zealand, October 2002, 15 International Journal of Refugee Law 444 – 460 (2003).
- MATHEW, P., - Interception - The Legal Issues, 17 Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 221 – 249 (2003).
- MATHEW, P., - Refugee Protection in the Wake of the Tampa, 96 American Journal of International Law 661 - 676 (2002).