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Emma Larking
Dr Emma Larking
Qualifications
Bachelor of Arts (Hons)/Bachelor of Law (LLB), Monash University; PhD in Philosophy, University of Melbourne

Emma has a law/arts degree from Monash University and a PhD in philosophy from the University of Melbourne. Before commencing her PhD she was a practising solicitor and subsequently Associate in the County Court of Victoria. With Chief Investigators Professor Brian Galligan and Dr John Chesterman, she worked on the ARC Discovery Project, ‘The Politics of Rights’. She has also worked as a lecturer in the University of Melbourne’s Schools of Philosophical and Historical Studies, and of Social and Political Sciences.
Research interests:
Law, philosophy, history, and politics of human rights; refugees and immigration; global justice; political and applied philosophy; and contemporary political theory
Research projects:
Until recently, Emma was a Postdoctoral Fellow with Professor Hilary Charlesworth’s Australian Research Council Laureate Project, ‘Strengthening the international human rights system: rights, regulation and ritualism’. Her research examined those features of human rights and the international rights regime likely to facilitate rights ritualism, or behaviour by states which undermines or ignores rights despite those states having made a formal commitment to rights recognition. As well as identifying mechanisms to encourage and support genuine rights realisation, her research explores the limitations of rights language and the implications for social justice and political dissent of the now overwhelming dominance of this language.
Emma’s current research engages with political mobilisations for social justice. She is currently interested in anti-poverty campaigns, as well as the global food sovereignty movement and advocacy for a UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other People Working in Rural Areas.
Emma’s PhD research focused on the liberal democratic response to refugees and asylum seekers. She drew on history, philosophy, and law to analyse the contemporary response to refugees. Her book, Refugees and the Myth of Human Rights: Life Outside the Pale of the Law was published by Ashgate in 2014.

Peasants of La Vía Campesina take on the World Trade Organisation
Food sovereignty and the International Peasants’ Movement

Emma Larking guest speaker at conference on legal responses to forced mass migration
Other invited speakers included the EU’s Commissioner for Justice, Consumer and Gender Equality, Věra Jurová, Judge of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic, Katerina Simácková, and Petr Kostohryz, from the Norwegian Refugee Council.

The New York declaration for refugees and migrants – what’s missing?
It is essential that a new international framework for managing displacement that is consistent with human dignity and with the rule of law within and between states be forged.

Book launch: Human rights and the universal periodic review - rituals and ritualism
Human Rights and the Universal Periodic Review: Rituals and Ritualism book to be launched at Australian Consulate in Geneva

CIGJ submission to Senate Committee Inquiry
Charlesworth, Larking and Mulder make submission to Senate Committee.

Hilary Charlesworth and Emma Larking discuss their new book on Allegra
Hilary Charlesworth and Emma Larking have a ‘virtual conversation’ on Allegra.

Emma Larking on PM's attack on Gillian Triggs
In this opinion piece published in the Canberra Times on February 27, Emma Larking argues that the government’s attacks against Gillian Triggs, the President of the Human Rights Commission have bac

Regarding Rights: Equal freedom for all requires limiting freedom of expression
Regarding Rights editor Dr Emma Larking takes a look at whether proposed amendments to the Racial Discrminiation Act will do anything to strengthen protection against racial discrimination.
Completed

Strengthening the international human rights system: Rights, regulation and ritualism
This project focuses on a problem endemic to the international human rights system: why are international human rights standards widely accepted in theory but so hard to implement in practice?

Author(s): Benjamin Authers, Hilary Charlesworth, Emma Larking, Marie-Benedicte Dembour
Date of publications: 2018
Publication type: Book chapter

Author(s): Dr Emma Larking
Date of publications: 2017
Publication type: Journal article

Author(s): Authers, Benjamin, Baird, Natalie, Billaud, Julie, Bulto, Takele, Charlesworth, Hilary, Chauville, Roland, Collister, Heather, Cowan, Jane K, Joseph, Sarah, Kälin, Walter , Larking, Emma, Lynch, Phil, Schokman, Ben , De La Vega, Constance, Yamasaki, Cassandra, Wahyuningrum, Yuyun
Date of publications: 2015
Publication type: Book

Author(s): Charlesworth, Hilary, Larking, Emma
Date of publications: 2015
Publication type: Book chapter

Author(s): Larking, Emma
Date of publications: 2014
Publication type: Book