Professor
Sam Blay

LLB (Hons) (Ghana), LLM (ANU), PhD (Tas)

Academic Profile

Professor Sam Blay joined the Faculty in 1996. He is a former Dean of Law, University of Tasmania, Director of the Faculty's China Program and a part-time Member of the Refugee Review Tribunal. Professor Blay graduated as the first PhD in Law at the University of Tasmania in 1985 and has served as a UNDP consultant in Somalia and Vietnam. He has also worked as a consultant to the governments of Vanuatu and Nauru on self-determination and related international issues.

Sam has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and at the China University of Politics and Law in Beijing (2005). He is currently a Research Scholar at the Southwestern University of Political Science and Law, Chongqing in China. 

He has also been an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow (Max Planck Institute for International and Comparative Law in Heidelberg, Germany (1992-3; 2003) and maintains an active interest in academic exchange programs with leading German institutions.

Professor Blay is co-editor of Public International Law, Australian Perspectives (OUP 2005) and co-author of Torts in Principle (LBC 2005).

Current Research Activities

Law and Order and Vigilantes in Antarctica

Privative Clauses in Asylum Determination Procedures

Recent Grants, Publications and Conference Papers

ARC Discovery Grant: "The Exclusion of Asylum Seekers" (2005).

'The Restriction of Migration: Legal Aspects' in Proceedings of the Workshop on Memory and Migration (June 2005) Akadamie Schloss, Stuttgart, Germany.

'The Implementation of Treaties in Domestic Law'. Presentation at the workshop on International Treaties and the Role of the Legislature, Hanoi 2005.

'Harmonization of the relationship between the Executive and the Legislature: International Perspectives' Presentation at the National Assembly Workshop on The Relationship Between the Legislature and the Executive, Ho Chi Min City, 2004.

'Combating Human Trafficking: Australia's Response to Modern Day Slavery' The Australian Law Journal (2005) (with Burns  and Simmons).

'The International Regulation of Biotechnology: Problems and Prospects' Journal of International Biotechnology Law (2005).

'Adventures in Pedagogy: The Trials and Tribulations of Teaching Common Law in China' Legal Education Review (2005). (with Young and Li).

'Defence and Defiance in International Law: Israel, a Wall and an Advisory Opinion' The Australian Law Journal (2005) (with Piotrowicz).

'The WTO and Greening of World Trade: A look at WTO Jurisprudence' Environmental and Planning Law Journal (2004).

'Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: Just Huff and Puff, or will the Tobacco Industry go up in Smoke?' Australian Law Journal, (2003).

'The Use of Force and the Force of Law in Iraq' Australian Law Journal, (2003).