Find an expert

Nicholas Aroney is Professor of Constitutional Law at The University of Queensland, Director (Public Law) of the Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law and a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Law and Religion at Emory University. In 2010 he received a four-year Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council to study comparative federalism and in 2021 he secured an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant to investigate the nature and function of constituent power in federal systems. He has held visiting positions at Oxford, Cambridge, Paris II, Edinburgh, Durham, Padua, Sydney, Emory and Tilburg universities.

Professor Aroney has published over 160 journal articles, book chapters and books in the fields of constitutional law, comparative constitutional law and legal theory. He has led several international research projects in comparative federalism, bicameralism, legal pluralism, and law & religion, and he speaks frequently at international conferences on these topics. His most notable publications in these fields include: The Constitution of a Federal Commonwealth: The Making and Meaning of the Australian Constitution (Cambridge University Press, 2009), Shari'a in the West (Oxford University Press, 2010) (edited with Rex Ahdar), The Future of Australian Federalism (Cambridge University Press, 2012) (edited with Gabrielle Appleby and Thomas John), The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia: History, Principle and Interpretation (Cambridge University Press, 2015) (with Peter Gerangelos, James Stellios and Sarah Murray), Courts in Federal Countries (Toronto University Press, 2017) (edited with John Kincaid), The Routledge Handbook of Subnational Constitutions and Constitutionalism (Routledge 2021) (edited with Patricia Popelier and Giacomo Delledone) and Christianity and Constitutionalism (Oxford University Press, 2022) (edited with Ian Leigh).

Professor Aroney is a former editor of The University of Queensland Law Journal (2003-2005) and International Trade and Business Law Annual (1996-1998), and a past secretary of the Australian Society of Legal Philosophy. He is a past member of the Governing Council and the current Co-Convenor of the Queensland Chapter of the Australian Association of Constitutional Law. He is also a member of the editorial advisory board of the American Journal of Jurisprudence, Public Law Review, Australian Journal of Law and Religion and International Trade and Business Law Review. He has made numerous influential submissions to government and parliamentary inquiries and in 2013 undertook a review of the Crime and Misconduct Act for the Queensland Government with the Hon Ian Callinan AC QC, a former Justice of the High Court of Australia. In 2017 he was appointed by the Australian Prime Minister to an Expert Panel to advise on whether Australian law adequately protects the human right to freedom of religion.

Professor Aroney joined the Law School in 1995 after working with a major national law firm and acting as a legal consultant in the field of building and construction law.

Professor Ann Black researches in the field of comparative law, law & religion, and legal pluralism, with particular interest in Islamic law and the law and legal cultures of Asia, especially Brunei Darussalam. She teaches two comparative law courses in the undergraduate program - Asian Legal Systems and Introduction to Islamic law in addition to Fundamentals of the Common Law and Comparative Criminal Law in the School's Master's program. Professor Black received the UQ Teaching Excellence Award in 2022, and in 2023 she received the prestigious Award for Teaching Excellence at the Australian Awards for University Teaching.

Professor Black is a co-author with Gary Bell, of Law and Legal Institutions of Asia: Traditions, adaptations and innovations (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Modern Perspectives on Islamic Law, with Hossein Esmaeili and Nadirsyah Hosen, (Edward Elgar, 2013), and Religious Freedom in a Secular Society, with Jahid Hussein in Brill’s Studies in Religion, Secular Beliefs and Human Rights (2022) and Religious Freedom and Accommodating Religious Diversity: Challenges and Responses (2023). Another book co-edited with Jahid Bhuiyan, Freedom of Religion and Religious Diversity: State Accommodation of Religious Minorities (Routledge) will be available October 2024.

Professor Black is the Executive Director, Comparative Law, in the Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law and is the Program manager for the Centre's Indonesian Law Program, the Legal Pluralism Program, and the Korean Law Program and is a member of the Law and Religion in the Asia-Pacific and the Federalism and Multilevel Governance Program.

Dr Renato Costa joined the T. C. Beirne School of Law as an LLM student in 2018. Before undertaking his studies at the University of Queensland, he practised as a lawyer in one of Brazil's most prominent law firms. Renato specialises in constitutional and comparative law. His research focus is constitutional theory and specific aspects of the Australian constitutional system, including the rule of law, federalism, constitutional history, religious freedom and human rights, political and legal theology, and jurisprudence.

Renato graduated with an LLB from the Faculty of Law at the Catholic University of Pernambuco, in Brazil. He holds a PhD and an LLM from T.C. Beirne School of Law at the University of Queensland. Renato is one of the editors of the University of Queensland Law Journal (UQLJ), and a fellow of UQ's Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law (CPICL).

Simon is an intellectual historian specialising in the history of legal, political and religious ideas. He is currently working on a number of projects: the political uses of the fifth commandment ("Honour your father and mother") in the early modern period, resistance theory in the Reformed Protestant tradition, and the idea of constituent power in the early modern period. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest in early 2023, and is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Danube Institute, also in Budapest. His first book was published with Edinburgh University Press in 2022, and is entitled Reforming the Law of Nature: The secularisation of political thought, 1532-1689. His second book is on education, entitled Against Worldview, and published with Lexham Press.

Patrick Parkinson is an Emeritus Professor at the TC Beirne School of Law. Professor Parkinson was Dean of Law at the TC Beirne School of Law from 2018 - 2021. Professor Parkinson is a specialist in family law, child protection, law and religion and the law of equity and trusts. His books include Australian Family Law in Context (8th ed, 2023), Tradition and Change in Australian Law (5th ed, 2013), Family Law and the Indissolubility of Parenthood (2011), The Voice of a Child in Family Law Disputes (with Judy Cashmore, 2008), Child Sexual Abuse and the Churches (2nd ed, 2003) and Principles of Equity (editor, 2nd ed., 2003). Professor Parkinson served from 2004-2007 as Chairperson of the Family Law Council, an advisory body to the federal Attorney- General, and also chaired a review of the Child Support Scheme in 2004-05 which led to the enactment of major changes to the Child Support Scheme. He was President of the International Society of Family Law from 2011-14. Professor Parkinson is also well-known for his community work concerning child protection. He has been a member of the NSW Child Protection Council, and was Chairperson of a major review of the state law concerning child protection which led to the enactment of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998. He also works with churches on child protection and religious freedom issues.