Dr Sanzhuan (Sandra) Guo is a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program and the Rapporteur of the International Law Association’s Committee on International Migration and International Law (initially Co-Rapporteur from 2021 to June 2024, and then sole Rapporteur). She is an Associate Professor in Law at the College of Business, Government and Law, Flinders University, Australia.
Sandra has a PhD in International Law from Peking University Law School (China, 2010), a Juris Doctor from Melbourne Law School (Australia, 2011), and an LLM from Northwestern University School of Law (USA, 2002). She has been admitted to practise law in three countries: China, USA (New York) and Australia (Victoria and South Australia). She has been an accredited immigration law specialist in Australia since 2016.
Sandra is an international lawyer with special focus on international human rights law and international migration law. Her PhD thesis was on national human rights institutions (NHRIs), adopting compliance theory in international law to evaluate the effectiveness of NHRIs through 11 case studies of Australia, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Kenya, Nigeria, France, Sweden, Denmark, Poland and Mexico (covering different types of NHRIs and all four regions), with the aim of contributing to the establishment of China’s NHRI.
Sandra has devoted significant time to legal practice in parallel with her academic work. She has practiced as an immigration lawyer in Australia since 2013, including as a supervising lawyer at Flinders Migration Clinic from 2015 to 2017. Since 2016, her research focus has moved towards citizenship and migration through a human rights lens. She was a Visiting Researcher at the Hague Academy of International Law on the Project on ‘Citizenship in International Law’ (2016) and she organised and led a workshop in February 2024 on mass deportation with the support of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. She also has a special personal and professional interest in nationality and national belonging of overseas Chinese, including undertaking historical research on the nationality of Chinese Australians who fought for Australia in WWI (Army History Project, 2024).
In addition, Sandra has strong interests in working with and training human rights defenders from developing countries including Mongolia, evidenced by her successful delivery of a DFAT Australia Awards Fellowship Mongolia Project in 2023-2024, in which she worked closely with the National Human Rights Commission of Mongolia. She also established a Flinders Mongolian Human Rights Internship in 2024 with funding support from the Law Foundation of South Australia.
Her current work is around regional migration governance in the Australia-New Zealand-Pacific (ANZ-Pacific) region through a multidisciplinary approach integrating international law and international relations, including a study of the world’s first bilateral climate migration agreement, the Australia – Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty. Her work at Harvard is part of this project.
Related Work
International Law Association’s Committee Report
Sanzhuan Guo as one of the two Co-Rapporteurs of the International Law Association’s Committee on International Migration and International Law, Interim Report on the Right to Enter (with members’ contributions), March 2024
Book
Comparative Studies on the Effectiveness of National Human Rights Institutions (Beijing: Law Press, 2013), in Chinese
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
(2024)
Sanzhuan Guo (in print), ‘Conflict and Statelessness: A Case Study of Descendants of the KMT Secret Army in Thailand’, in Michelle Foster, Jaclyn Neo and Christoph Sperfeldt (eds) Statelessness in Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2024)
Marinella Marmo and Sanzhuan Guo (special issue editors), Griffith Law Review, 2024, a special issue in relation to the workshop on deportation hosted in February 2024, ‘Legal frameworks to discipline out unwantedness: A critical lens on mass deportation of non-citizens’
(2023)
Sanzhuan Guo and Tim McFarland, ‘Dual Nationality and National Belonging: A Case Study of Chinese Diaspora in Indonesia from 1949 to 1960s’ (2023) 39 (2&3) Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales 155
(2022)
Marinella Marmo, Elvio Anthony Sinopoli and Sanzhuan Guo, ‘Worker Exploitation in the Australian Gig Economy: Emerging Mechanisms of Social Control’ (2022) 31(2) Griffith Law Review 171
Sanzhuan Guo and Robert Lachowicz, ‘Meeting the Needs of Clients and Students –Two Australian Case Studies: Flinders Migration Clinic and the Refugee and Immigration Legal Service’, in Richard Grimes, Vera Honuskova and Ulrich Stege (eds) Teaching Migration and Asylum Law: Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2022)
(2021)
Sanzhuan Guo and Danielle Ireland-Piper, ‘China and Extraterritorial Criminal Jurisdiction’, in Danielle Ireland-Piper (ed), Extraterritoriality in East Asia: Extraterritorial Criminal Jurisdiction in China, Japan and South Korea (Edward Elgar, 2021) 48
(2018)
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘Advantages and Disadvantages of Dual Citizenship’ in Jean-Denis Mouton and Peter Kovacs (eds), The Concept of Citizenship in International Law (Hague Academy of International Law) (Brill/Nijhoff, 2018) 131
Sanzhuan Guo and Madhav Gautam, ‘Stateless Rohingyas in Bangladesh and Refugee Status: Global Order and Disorder under International Law’, in Leon Wolff and Danielle Ireland-Piper (eds), Global Governance and Regulation: Order and Disorder in the 21st Century (Routledge, 2018) 83
(2017)
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘Independence of National Human Rights Institutions and Linkage between International Law and Domestic Law: A Case Study of National Human Rights Commission of Korea’ (2017) 1 Asian Yearbook of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law 270
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘China’s Criminal Response to Domestic Violence against Women: Private Prosecution and a Human Rights Approach’, in Leanne Weber, Elaine Fishwick and Marinella Marmo (eds), The Routledge International Handbook of Criminology and Human Rights (Routledge, 2017) 449
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘National Human Rights Protection’, in Research Center of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Peking University Law School (ed), Introduction to International Human Rights Law (1st ed, 2013 and 2nd ed, 2017), in Chinese
(2016)
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘National Human Rights Institutions’, in Peking University Encyclopedia of Jurisprudence: Public International Law (Peking University Press, 2016), in Chinese
(2014)
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘The Peacekeeping Decision-Making Process and the Modality of Financing in China’, in Andrea de Guttry, Emanuele Sommario and Lijiang Zhu (eds), China and Italy’s Participation in UN Peacekeeping Operations: Existing Models, Emerging Challenges (Lexington Books, 2014)
(2013)
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘Does North Korea’s Nuclear Test Violate International Law?’ (2013) 10 Beida Guoji Fa yu Bijiao Fa Pinglun [PKU International and Comparative Law Review] 257, in Chinese
(2011)
Jerry Z Li and Sanzhuan Guo, Chapter on China, in Dinah Shelton (ed), International Law and Domestic Legal Systems: Incorporation, Transformation, and Persuasion (Oxford University Press, 2011) 151
(2010)
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘The Establishment and Role of National Human Rights Institutions’ [2010] 3 Huaqiu Falv Pinglun [Global Law Review] 124, in Chinese
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘Effectiveness of National Human Rights Institutions in International Human Rights Law: Problems and Prospects’ (2008) 14 Asian Yearbook of International Law 101 (print in 2010)
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘Shall Individual Complaints be Included when Establishing China’s National Human Rights Institution?’ (2010) 7 Beida Guoji Fa yu Bijiao Fa Pinglun [PKU International and Comparative Law Review] 20, in Chinese
(2009)
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘Implementation of Human Rights Treaties by Chinese Courts: Problems and Prospects’ (2009) 8 Chinese Journal of International Law 161 (an Oxford publication)
(2000)
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘The Status of Individuals in International Human Rights Law’ [2000] 2 Sichuan University Law Review 176, in Chinese
Blog
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘Unblocking Access to Citizenship in China: Is Decentralisation Even Possible?’, in EUI Global Citizenship Observatory, Unblocking Access to Citizenship in the Global South: Should the Process be Decentralised? (GlobalCIT Blog, 16 November 2020)
Work in Progress
Co-authored edited book on country practice of deportation (part of her work at Harvard)
Sanzhuan Guo and Jessica Genauer, ‘Climate-induced Migration and Human Security: A Human Rights Lens with a Case Study of the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty, (2025) Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales (part of her work at Harvard)
Sanzhuan Guo and Mary Crock, ‘Migration and Regional Development in the ANZ-Pacific: Modelling Legislation and Systems of Governance’ (conference paper, Nov 2024)
George Tian, Tim McFarland and Sanzhuan Guo (corresponding author), ‘Automated Decision-Making and Deportation: Legal Concerns and Regulation’, Griffith Law Review (2024 Special Issue, under peer review)
George Tian and Sanzhuan Guo, ‘Climate Change and the Right to Life: AI-empowered Proactive Solutions’, in Vasilka Sancin (ed), Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights: From the Right to Life to A Myriad of Diverse Human Rights Implications, book chapter (under peer review)
Sanzhuan Guo, ‘China: Citizenship (Nationality) and Immigration Law’, in Sarah Biddulph and Kathryn Taylor (eds) Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Asian Law, book chapter (under peer review)
