Associate ProfessorTania Penovic

Dr Tania Penovic is an Associate Professor at Deakin Law School. She is an expert in human rights and access to justice with a strong track record of research impact. She is senior co-chair in women and girls’ rights and an executive management committee member of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights. A/Prof Penovic serves on the editorial board of the Australian Feminist Law Journal and is a 2024 E.G. Whitlam Research Fellow at Western Sydney University, an affiliated academic member of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University and stream co-lead for the Centre for Law as Protection. 

A/Prof Penovic's research has focused on advancing access to justice, rights and remedies for marginalised individuals and groups. She has published extensively on gender equality and reproductive rights and the impact of law, policies and practices on the realisation of human rights, including the rights of asylum seekers and refugees, First Nations peoples and LGBTIQ+ people. Her work is published in leading national and international journals, including the Federal Law Review, UNSW Law Journal and Cambridge International Law Journal.  

A/Prof Penovic's research has has generated a significant impact on law reform, public policy and judicial decision-making in Australia and internationally and advances in the way legal problems are understood. It has been awarded the Monash Law Dean's Award for Excellence in Research; Research Impact (Economic and Social Impact) for substantial and sustained impact on legislative reform, judicial decision-making and the understanding of human rights in the context of women’s access to health care. 

A/Prof Penovic has provided numerous submissions to parliamentary and law reform bodies and courts. Her submissions and invited expert testimony have been quoted and cited extensively in reports of parliamentary committees, courts, law reform bodies and human rights mandates of the United Nations. 

The focus of A/Prof Penovic's current research includes the justice-based impacts of Victoria's Public Intoxication Reform, reproductive justice, the operation of youth diversion programs in the Northern Territory and the impacts of prison privatisation in Australia.