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Prof Charles Sampford - Law and Justice Research Centre

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Professor Charles Sampford

PhD (Law) Oxford University
LLB The University of Melbourne
BA (Philosophy, Politics) The University of Melbourne Photo of Professor Charles Sampford

Contact:

Room: 323 (Gardens Point campus)
Tel: (61 7) 3138 1101
Fax: (61 7) 313 84253
Email: c.sampford@qut.edu.au

At Melbourne University, Charles Sampford graduated at the top of his class in each of politics, philosophy and law, gaining a ‘double first’ in Arts and the Supreme Court Prize in Law.  He then won a Commonwealth Scholarship to Oxford to pursue all three disciplines in his doctoral studies.  He was awarded a DPhil in 1984 which was published by Blackwells as ‘The Disorder of Law’.  He returned to Melbourne University to teach law before being seconded to the Philosophy Department in 1990 to help establish the Centre for Philosophy and Public Issues where he was promoted to Principal Research Fellow.  In 1991 he was invited to come to Queensland as Foundation Dean of Law at Griffith University.  This is widely regarded as the most innovative and most successful of Australia’s new law schools and was hailed by Sir Ninian Stephen as a ‘revolution in legal education.’  In 1999, he was appointed Foundation Director of the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance (the only Australian centre in law or governance to receive centre funding from the Australian Research Council).  In September 2004, he became the Director of the Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law, a joint initiative of the United Nations University and Griffith (one of 23 UNU centres around the world).  At the same time he took on the role of Convenor of the Australian Research Council funded Governance Research Network. 

Foreign fellowships include the Visiting Senior Research Fellow at St John's College Oxford (1997) and a Senior Fulbright Award to Harvard University at the Program for Ethics and the Professions (2000).

Professor Sampford has written over eighty articles and chapters in Australian and foreign journals and collections ranging through constitutional law and theory, legal philosophy, legal education, politics, criminology and applied ethics and has completed twenty one books and edited collections for international publishers including Oxford University Press, Blackwell, Routledge, Cavendish and Ashgate.  He is the general editor of three book series and his most recent monograph, ‘Retrospectivity and the Rule of Law’ was released by OUP in Oxford in 2006.  He is on the editorial Boards of Legal Ethics and Public Integrity – the leading journals in their fields based in England and the USA respectively.  He has also won over fifteen million dollars in grants, consultancies and awards for research work he has led.  During the 1980s, he concentrated on constitutional law and theory.  The bulk of his research since 1990 has been in the areas of applied ethics, ethics regimes, corruption measurement, integrity systems, the rule of law and the role of values in international affairs. 

His writings on legal education which led to his appointment as Griffith’s Foundation Dean of Law were put to work on its ground-breaking interdisciplinary curriculum.  As Foundation Director of the Key Centre, he led the development of a post graduate suite of courses in ethics and governance. 

Since October 2001, he has been President of an international NGO linking ethics academics and practitioners (the International Institute for Public Ethics).  As such he was the Chair of the Organizing Committee for its World Ethics Forum held in Oxford in April 2006.  He is a leading member of the Board of World Bank/USAID/DIFID/AusAID supported Global Integrity Alliance. 

Professor Sampford has been consulted by business, government and various Parliaments – including the principal legal advisor to the Queensland Scrutiny of Legislation Committee from its inception in 1995 to 2002.  He was heavily involved in the anti-corruption reforms which inspired the Transparency International concept of a ‘national integrity system’ and later did extensive research with Transparency International on measuring corruption and mapping and assessing integrity systems.  He advised the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life and the Lord Chancellors Committee on Legal Education and Professional Conduct.  In September 1998, he went to Indonesia on a special mission for the World Bank to advise the Indonesian government on governance reforms to deal with corruption.  Other missions for the World Bank and APEC followed.  From 2002-3, he was a member of a task force on responding to threats to democracy co-chaired by Madeleine Albright. In 2003-4, he led a Soros funded series of dialogues on governance values involving western and Islamic scholars.  At the same time he has pursued a successful career as a part-time company director and chairman, gaining insights into the operation of Australian and international business that are valuable in ethics and governance work.

Research interests:

  • International Law
  • International Governance
  • Ethics
  • Law and Theory
  • Legal Philosohy
  • Legal Education
  • Human Rights

Select Publications:

  • Encouraging Ethics and Challenging Corruption: Reforming Governance in Public Institutions (Sydney: Federation Press, 2002) (with N. Preston and C. Connors, co-authors).
  •  ‘Challenges to the Concepts of ‘Sovereignty’ and ‘Intervention’’, in T. Campbell and B.M. Leiser (eds.), Human Rights in Philosophy and Practice (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001) pp. 335-391.
  • New Foundations in Legal Education (Avalon: Cavendish, 1998) (with R. Simmonds and J. Goldring, co-authors).
  •  ‘What’s a Lawyer Doing in a Nice Place Like This? Lawyers and Applied Ethics’, Legal Ethics, vol. 1, no. 1, 1998, pp. 35-50.
  •  ‘Institutionalising Public Sector Ethics’, in N. Preston (ed.), Ethics for the Public Sector: Education and Training (Sydney: Federation Press, 1994) pp. 14-34.
  •  ‘Law, Institutions and the Public/Private Divide’, Federal Law Review, vol. 20, no. 2, 1991, pp. 185-222.
  •  ‘Coups d'Etat and Law’, in E. Attwooll (ed.), Shaping Revolution (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1991) pp. 165-175.
  •  ‘Responsible Government and the Logic of Federalism: An Australian Paradox’, Public Law, vol. 90, Spring 1990, pp. 90-115.
  • The Disorder of Law: A Critique of Legal Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989).
  •  ‘‘Recognize’ and ‘Declare’: An Australian Experiment in Codifying Constitutional Conventions’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 7, no. 3, 1987, pp. 369-420.

Full list of Professor Sampfords publications.

Grants Awarded (current)

The ARC Governance Research Network (GovNet). ARC Research Network

Re-envisioning Sovereignty and Nationhood in the Contemporary International Context. ARC Discovery Grant

A Place to Call Home: Expediting repatriation and ending the practice of warehousing refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). ARC Linkage Grant

The Ethics of International Intervention for Humanitarian, Pro-democratic and Anti-terrorist Reasons and the Legal, Ethical and Institutional Means of Regulating Such Interventions. ARC Discovery Grant.

Indonesian National Integrity System. Australian Indonesian Governance Research Program (AIGRP).

 

Membership of Professional & Academic Organisations

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