The Centre for International Governance and Justice (CIGJ) hosts a vibrant community of scholars dedicated to the study of complex and interconnected 21st century challenges.

The Centre was established in 2005 by Professor Hilary Charlesworth. During her tenure as director, CIGJ was home to Hilary’s ARC Federation Fellowship on ‘Building Democracy and Justice after Conflict’ and Laureate Fellowship on ‘Strengthening the International Human Rights System: Rights, Regulation and Ritualism’, along with a host of other research projects, including ‘Peacebuilding Compared’.

In 2021, Hilary was appointed as a Judge to the International Court of Justice and Professor Anthea Roberts became the new director of CIGJ.

Drawing together a range of scholars at RegNet and beyond who are working on projects relating to global governance, conflict, violence, and complexity, CIGJ is currently focusing on three areas:

• Navigating the Changing Zeitgeist (GEIST)
• Methods for a Complex and Uncertain World (CUW)
• Conflict, Violence and Justice (CVJ)

Scholars in each node meet regularly to explore new topics and exchange ideas. - GEIST hosts the ANU Geoeconomics Working Group’s monthly meetings - CUW and CVJ each host reading groups on a bimonthly basis

If you are interested in signing up for these meetings and reading groups, please email the centre’s Project Officer, Aishwarya (aishwarya.aishwarya@anu.edu.au) to be included in our mailing lists.

Navigating the Changing Zeitgeist (GEIST)

The GEIST node brings together scholars across disciplines working to understand global governance under conditions of structural change and pervasive uncertainty.

Our world is facing a series of complex and interconnected challenges. Shifts in the economic, military and technological balance of power is are fuelling geostrategic rivalry between China and the United States, creating challenges for companies and third countries. Growing inequality within states is stoking populist backlashes against economic globalisation and established democratic institutions. The impacts of climate change are compounding and demand rapid transformation of national economies and energy systems. Technological change is accelerating, portending great economic and environmental benefits while generating new security and societal risks.

In many ways, the zeitgeist is changing. GEIST concentrates its efforts on global challenges emerging at the intersection of geopolitics, economics, interdependence, sustainability and technology (GEIST). Understanding these dilemmas necessitates drawing on expertise from across the social sciences and focuses attention on theoretical frameworks and research methodologies that foster integrative thinking and systemic approaches. As a problem-driven endeavour, GEIST aims to generate new theoretical insights as well as practical guidance for governments, businesses, local communities and public institutions seeking to navigate this turbulent era.

GEIST is currently home to the following projects:

• ‘Navigating the Emerging Geoeconomic Order: Integrating Economics, Security and Technology’
• Australian Defence Department grant funded project on ‘Navigating the Emerging Geo-Economic Order: Integrating Economics, Security and Collective Defence through 2040’
• National Foundation for Australia China Relations grant on ‘Engaging with private sector on the intersection of economics, security and technology’
• DFAT grant on ‘The geoeconomics of critical technology standards in Southeast Asia’
• Defence Strategic Policy Grant funded project on ‘Disruptive technologies: Model-based scenario analysis of decarbonisation and national security risks in the Indo-Pacific’
• RegNet funded seed project on ‘Change and continuation in global governance in a contested world’
• CIW Research Support Grant on ‘Measuring and mapping the health of the Australia-China relationship’

Methods for a Complex and Uncertain World (CUW)

The CUW node brings together scholars and practitioners who are exploring new methods for understanding and engaging in governance in a complex and uncertain world.

Faced with increasing complexity, many areas of international governance and justice require more systemic ways of analysing interconnected and interdependent actors and events. Developments often do not occur in linear and predictable ways, requiring attention to contingencies and cascades, feedback loops and tipping points, emergent patterns and kaleidoscopic change. The ‘local’ is often shaped by, and in turn shapes, the ‘national’ and ‘international’, requiring multi-scalar analysis and attention to the dialogue between, and entanglement of, the local and the global. Conceptual categories are being disrupted, while theorising often requires abductively moving in between, or zooming in and out of, micro-ethnographic encounters and macro-theoretical framings, as well as mixing methods and multiplying sites for analysis. CUW explores these issues, with a particular focus on how they play out in studying international governance and justice.

CUW is currently home to the following projects:

• ‘Governing in Complexity’
• ARC funded project on ‘Community Rulemaking in the Pacific as Regulatory Innovation’
• DFAT funded project on Reforming the Investment Treaty System
• ‘Thinking Global’ book project by Anthea Roberts
• RegNet funded seed project on ‘Critical Systems Thinking, Adaptive Governance, Complexity and Change’

Conflict, Violence and Justice (CVJ)

The CVJ node draws together scholars from multiple disciplines who engage with the drivers and inhibitors of diverse forms of violence and conflict around the globe. The contemporary era is characterised by volatility, ambiguity and uncertainty, which generates new forms of violence and conflict and amplifies existing ones. Scholars in this node interrogate the pursuit of justice, order-making and peacebuilding under these shifting social and political conditions, both within and beyond formal institutions. As a problem-driven research collaboration, they seek to uncover and promote the burgeoning innovation across multiple scales to prevent and respond to the harms caused by violence and conflict.

CVJ draws together scholars working on a range of themes including political violence, the far right, grievances, inclusion and exclusion, extremist attacks, post-conflict peacebuilding and state-building, transitional justice, reconciliation, memory politics, violence in Melanesia, global human rights law and transnational legal phenomena.

CVJ is currently home to the following projects:

• ARC funded project on ‘Peacebuilding Compared’
• ARC Future Fellowship Project on ‘Local Responses to Missing Persons and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding’
• ARC Discovery Project on ‘Heritage and Reconciliation’
• DFAT funded project on ‘Overcoming Sorcery Accusation related violence’
• ARC Discovery Project on ‘Democratic Resilience: The Public Sphere and Extremist Attacks’
• ‘Extreme Far Right and the Mainstream in Australia’
• ‘Translating Global Human Rights Law into Local Justice’