“Envisioning Middle East Peace: Are Rights Still Relevant?”
The Centre for Law as Protection and the Alfred Deakin Institute (ADI) are pleased to invite you to join our upcoming seminar with Professor Omar Dajani (University of the Pacific, US), who is visiting the Centre for Law as Protection.
Professor Dajani will discuss pathways to peace in the Middle East amidst escalating violence, weakening of the global order, and inadequate legal interventions. Analysts have already declared the two-state solution dead, urging a focus on alternatives addressing the “one state reality” in Israel-Palestine. The horrors of the last 16 months have made such an effort more urgent and more difficult. Despite the obvious challenges, Professor Dajani will explore the potential of a “shared homeland paradigm,” sharing a vision for a positive pathway forward.
Dr Michelle Lesh (Melbourne Law School) will provide her insights in response to Professor Dajani’s presentation. Professor Shiri Krebs (Deakin Law School) will moderate.
Speakers’ Bios:
Omar Dajani is the Carol Olson Professor of International Law at the McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. His scholarship, which explores how legal norms operate in the context of international conflict resolution processes and political transitions, focuses on Israel-Palestine. His recent publications include Federalism and Decentralization in the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2023) (co-edited, with Aslı Bâli). Previously, he served as legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team in peace talks with Israel, participating in the summits at Camp David and Taba, and as political adviser in the office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) in Jerusalem. He currently serves as Co-Chair of the Joint Board of A Land for All, an Israeli-Palestinian peace movement.
Michelle Lesh teaches at the Melbourne Law School. She has also taught at the London School of Economics. At the United Nations she worked as an international lawyer on the UN Commission of Inquiry into the Gaza protests and for the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory. She worked for many years in Israel-Palestine as a legal advisor at the governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental level. She is a member the International Council of New Israel Fund; and an Officer for the International Bar Association War Crimes Committee.
Shiri Krebs is a Professor of Law at Deakin University and the Director of the Centre for Law as Protection. She serves as the Chair of the Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict and is an affiliate scholar at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). In 2024-2025 she is a Visiting Legal Fellow at DFAT. Professor Krebs’ scholarship focuses on behavioural approaches to international law, biases and blind spots in predictive counterterrorism tools, and human-machine interaction in drone warfare. Her research on drone warfare and surveillance technologies is currently funded by several nationally and internationally competitive research grants, including from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany).
You can watch the seminar here.
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