Lunch seminar: Humanitarian Assistance in International Law
With Professor Marina Sharpe
When: 21 October 2026, 1pm-2pm AEST
Where: Moot Court Board Room, Deakin Law School, Burwood
Please email us to let us know if you have any dietary requirements.
Humanitarian assistance refers to essential goods and services provided in accordance with
humanitarian principles to save lives, alleviate suffering, and uphold human dignity. It has become
more important in recent years, as people are increasingly affected by armed conflict and the
adverse effects of climate change. In this seminar, Professor Marina Sharpe will present her new
book, Humanitarian Assistance in International Law (OUP 2026), which provides the first
comprehensive account of how international law regulates humanitarian assistance across all the
contexts in which it is required: armed conflict, situations of violence not amounting to armed
conflict, peacetime disasters, mixed situations, and at sea.
Speaker bio
Marina Sharpe is Associate Professor of international law at Canada’s Royal Military College
Saint–Jean and was formerly Senior Legal Officer with UNHCR. Her research on how international
law protects people in and from crisis has earned several major Canadian grants, including a
Trudeau Scholarship and SSHRC’s Banting Fellowship and Insight Grant. She serves on the
editorial boards of The Canadian Yearbook of International Law and the International Journal of
Refugee Law and the board of directors of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Professor Sharpe
is the author of two monographs: The Regional Law of Refugee Protection in Africa (OUP 2018)
and Humanitarian Assistance in International Law (OUP 2026). Other recent publications include
work on state hostage–taking, mixed migration, international humanitarian law education in
Canada, the humanitarian principles, and humanitarian access to Gaza
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