DrJoanna Kyriakakis

I am an Associate Professor in the Deakin Law School. My research focuses upon how laws enable or preclude the accountability of corporations and other powerful actors for international crimes and serious environmental harms, particularly when abuses occur in the context of global business activities. I approach this question from a number of perspectives: in terms of victim reparations, the internal normative and conceptual coherence of fields of law, and what it reveals about the structural complicities of law with violence. 

My research spans the areas of international criminal law, business and human rights, transnational corporate litigation, legal theory and transitional justice. Current projects explore the emerging international crime of ecocide and its potential application to corporate actors and to climate change, and the future of tort based climate litigation in Australia. I am also interested in the nature of legal personhood and the concepts extension to the non-human, and how climate change is legally disruptive. 

I teach in the areas of tort law, international criminal law, animal law, and climate litigation. I am the co-author of the student oriented torts textbook, Contemporary Australian Tort Law (CUP). I am co-lead of the Monash-based Climate Justice Lab. I joined Deakin Law School in 2026, prior to which I was an Associate Professor at Monash University Faculty of Law.