Research Team

Professor Jeremy Farrall is a Professor of law and former Associate Dean (Research) in the ANU College of Law, at the Australian National University. A leading International Law scholar of the United Nations and its Security Council, Professor Farrall has been a Chief Investigator on three Australian Research Council Discovery Projects. Professor Farrall has previously worked for the United Nations in a range of roles, serving as a Political Affairs Officer both for the UN Security Council at UN Headquarters in New York (2001-2004) and for the UN Mission in Liberia (2004-2006). He was also a UN Facilitator for the UN Secretary-General's Good Offices team that mediated peace talks in Cyprus (2004-2008).

Professor Jo Ford is a professor of law at the ANU College of Law. He was an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute for International Affairs, London (Chatham House) and a Research Associate of the Global Economic Governance programme at the University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government. He has worked in the federal public service, an intergovernmental organisation, academia, civil society, the private sector and freelance consulting. He holds degrees from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), Cambridge University, and the ANU. He is admitted as a Legal Practitioner in New South Wales and in 2021 was appointed a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Ford is a member of the global committee on 'Human Rights in Times of Emergency' of the International Law Association. He was a 2021-2022 Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. He served on the ANU College of Law executive from 2017 to 2022. Over 2022-2026 he helps lead an ARC (Australian Research Council) funded project 'Reconceiving Engagement with International Law in a Populist Era'. His most recent book is Populism and Human Rights (Routledge 2024).

Associate Professor Imogen Saunders is the Director of the Centre for International and Public Law at the ANU College of Law. She researches in international law, including on the history of women in international law, backlashes against international law and institutions, and international law and territory. Her work has been published in field leading journals such as the American Journal of International Law, the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law and the Australian Yearbook of International Law. Her monograph on General Principles of Law as a source of international law (Article 38(1)(c) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice) is now out with Hart. Imogen is a Chief Investigator on the 5 year ARC funded project Reconceiving Engagement with International Law in a Populist Era (2022-2027). Imogen completed her undergraduate degrees in law and science at the University of Western Australia, and was awarded her PhD from the Australian National University.

Dr. Nina Araneta-Alana is an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian National University (ANU). She joined the ANU in 2023 as part of the ARC Discovery Project ‘Reconceiving Engagement with International Law in a Populist Era.’ She completed her Juris Doctor at the Ateneo de Manila University and her Master of Laws at the University of Melbourne. She was conferred her PhD in International Law by the University of Melbourne in 2023. She is a member of the Institute for International Law and the Humanities, and the Cities and Environment Research Network (Melbourne). She acted as National Special Rapporteur for Australia for the International Academy of Comparative Law General Congress in 2022. Dr Araneta-Alana has extensive experience in international financial transactions, leading and providing significant legal support in projects in renewable energy, development and infrastructure when she was working in leading law firms in Manila, Philippines and for the Asian Development Bank.

Peter Danchin is the Jacob A. France Professor of Law, and co-director of the International and Comparative Law Program at the University of Maryland Carey Francis King Carey School of Law. He holds a BA and LLB with first class honors from the University of Melbourne, where he was editor-in-chief of the Melbourne University Law Review and president of the Law Students' Society, and a LLM and JSD from Columbia Law School where he was a Bretzfelder International Law Fellow. He was a foreign law clerk to Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, worked as a foreign associate at the New York law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, and was an associate at the Australian law firm of Allens Arthur Robinson. From 2000 to 2006, he was a lecturer and director of the human rights program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

 At Maryland Carey Law, he teaches courses in public international and transnational law, international human rights in both theory and practice, and South African constitutional law. He is faculty adviser to the Maryland Journal of International Law and International Law Society.

Shruti Rana is the assistant provost for Strategic Faculty Initiatives and professor of law at the University of Missouri School of Law. In her role in the Provost’s office, Rana supports faculty development, success, and inclusion by providing expertise, research, and resources for faculty education and development, and developing strategic initiatives for faculty across campus. 

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Before serving in the Provost’s office, Rana was Assistant Vice Chancellor for Inclusive Excellence and Strategic Initiatives at Mizzou, where she led the Office of Inclusive Excellence and developed initiatives for faculty and graduate student development and success. Prior to joining Mizzou, she served as senior assistant dean for curricular and undergraduate affairs and diversity officer at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University Bloomington, where she was also a professor and director of the International Law & Institutions Program. At Indiana University, Rana developed and strengthened curricular, experiential and global learning opportunities and partnerships, and worked on school and campus initiatives to enhance student success and retention as well as equity and inclusion for faculty and students. She was a professor at the University of Maryland Law School, where she co-developed the school’s international law clinic, and a visiting professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law. She has also served as Of Counsel at Brooks Pierce LLP, where she helped grow the firm’s international law practice, and as a Social Affairs Officer at the United Nations, where she analyzed international and domestic treaty obligations.