Find an expert

Rain Liivoja is a Professor and Deputy Dean (Research) at the University of Queensland Law School. He is also a Senior Fellow with the Lieber Institute for Law and Land Warfare at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and holds the title of Adjunct Professor of International Law at the University of Helsinki, where he is affiliated with the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights.

Rain's current research focuses on the legal challenges associated with military applications of science and technology. His broader research and teaching interest include general international law, the law of armed conflict and human rights law. He is the author of Criminal Jurisdiction over Armed Forces Abroad (Cambridge University Press 2017), and a co-editor of Autonomous Cyber Capabilities under International Law (NATO CCDCOE 2021), the Routledge Handbook of the Law of Armed Conflict (Routledge 2016) and International Law-making: Essays in Honour of Jan Klabbers (Routledge 2013). Rain is a Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies (published by Brill | Nijhoff).

Rain is a UQ Ally, a UQ Mental Health Champion and a member of the UQ Disability Inclusion Advocacy Network. He is the Chairperson of the Asia-Pacific Institute for Law and Security, and Deputy Chair of the Queensland Divisional Advisory Board of the Australian Red Cross.

Before joining the University of Queensland, Rain held academic appointments at the Universities of Melbourne, Helsinki and Tartu. In 2022–2023, he was a Visiting Legal Fellow at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He has also been a visiting scholar at Georgetown University, the University of Oxford and the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, and a visiting lecturer at the Estonian Military Academy and the Riga Graduate School of Law. Rain holds an undergraduate degree in law from the University of Tartu, and a masters and a doctorate in public international law from the University of Helsinki. He completed a Graduate Certificate in University Teaching at the University of Melbourne.

Rain does not teach into courses sponsored by the Confucius Institute or the Ramsay Centre.

Dr Eve Massingham is currently working as a Policy Adviser in the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. From September 2019 - August 2022, Eve was a Senior Research Fellow with the School of Law, The University of Queensland looking at the diverse ways in which the law constrains or enables autonomous functions of military platforms, systems and weapons. She is the co-editor of Ensuring Respect for International Humanitarian Law (Routledge, 2020) and she has published a number of book chapters and journal articles in the fields of international humanitarian law and international law and the use of force. Eve’s earlier work includes as the International Committee of the Red Cross' Regional Legal Adviser for East Africa and as an International Humanitarian Law officer for Australian Red Cross. She began her career at (then) Freehills (admitted 2004) and was an Associate to Justice Collier at the Federal Court of Australia. Eve has also served as an Australian Army Reserve Officer. Eve holds a Bachelor of Law (Hons) from Queensland University of Technology, a Master of International and Community Development from Deakin University, an LLM (Distinction) from King's College London and a PhD from the University of Queensland.

Dr Tim McFarland is a Research Fellow at the TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland. His current research focuses on the legal challenges connected with the defence and security applications of science and technology, with a particular focus on the impact of autonomous systems. His broader research interests include the law of armed conflict and international criminal law. He is the author of Autonomous Weapon Systems and the Law of Armed Conflict (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Before joining the University of Queensland, Tim researched the legal, ethical and social implications of military use of autonomous systems as a member of the Values in Defence & Security Technology group within the School of Engineering and Information Technology of the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. He completed his PhD studies at Melbourne Law School. He also holds degrees in Engineering and Economics, and has worked in the international humanitarian law department of the Australian Red Cross as well as in a variety of information technology roles.

Simon McKenzie is a Research Fellow at the University of Queensland School of Law. Simon's current research focuses on the legal challenges connected with the defence and security applications of science and technology, with a particular focus on the impact of autonomous systems. His broader research and teaching interests include the law of armed conflict, international criminal law, and domestic criminal law.

Prior to joining the University of Queensland, Simon was a policy officer in the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety, working in a team responsible for reforming the criminal justice system to better respond to family violence. He has held teaching roles at the Melbourne Law School and as a researcher at the Supreme Court of Victoria where he completed a major research project on the management of expert evidence in the Kilmore East Bushfire Proceedings, the largest class action in Victoria's history. He has also worked as a researcher at the International Criminal Court assisting the Special Advisor to the Prosecutor on international humanitarian law. He began his career in 2011 at a large commercial law firm in Melbourne.

Simon graduated in 2011 from the University of Tasmania with a combined Arts and Law Degree with First Class Honours in Law and was admitted to practice in Victoria later that year. He received his PhD in international criminal law from the University of Melbourne in 2018.

Andreas Schloenhardt is Professor of Criminal Law in the School of Law at The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia and Honorary Professor for Foreign and International Criminal Law in the Faculty of Law, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Vienna, Austria. P

Professor Schloenhardt is the convenor of the Transnational Organised Crime programme (https://toc.jura.uni-koeln.de/), a research and learning network with academic staff and students from the University of Vienna (Austria), the University of Zurich (Switzerland), the University of Cologne (Germany), the University of Ferrara (Italy), and the University of Queensland (Australia). Professor Schloenhardt holds a PhD in Law from The University of Adelaide. Prior to his position at The University of Queensland, he was a lecturer at The University of Adelaide Law School.

Professor Schloenhardt’s principal areas of research include criminal law, organised crime, smuggling of migrants, trafficking in persons, wildlife trafficking, narco-trafficking, terrorism, criminology, and immigration and refugee law. He is the author of many books and journal articles and his work is frequently cited by other scholars, in government reports, and judicial decisions, including the High Court of Australia and the Supreme Court of Austria.

Professor Schloenhardt has held adjunct appointments and visiting professorships at the University of Zurich, the University of St Gallen, the University of Ferrara, Bucerius Law School, Hamburg, the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law , The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey, California. In 2011-2012, Professor Schloenhardt was a recipient of a Fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.

Professor Schloenhardt is a member of the Austrian Society of Criminal Law and Criminology and he has worked extensively with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Council of Europe, the Global Initiative against Transnational Crime, the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) and a range of law enforcement agencies in Australia and Asia.