Research Team

Principal investigators

Dr Adam McBeth

Adam McBeth is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at Monash University and a Deputy Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law. He has published widely on the accountability of non-state entities, such as those being studied in this project, for human rights abuses. He is the author of International Economic Actors and Human Rights (2010, Routledge) and numerous book chapters and journal articles on the topic. He has particular expertise on accountability mechanisms such as those connected with the World Bank, the OECD and various regional development institutions, as well as litigation in domestic courts and complaint systems of UN agencies.

Adam has delivered human rights training programs to government and civil society representatives from Iraq, Indonesia and Australia under programs funded by AusAID and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He teaches international law, international human rights law and administrative law, among other subjects, at Monash University and previously taught at Deakin University.

Adam has had previous involvement in large research projects, including as the research fellow on an ARC Linkage Grant in 2001-03 on Multinational Corporations and Human Rights.

dr shelley marshall

Shelley Marshall is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Business Law and Taxation at Monash University, Australia. She is co-editor of Varieties of Capitalism, Corporate Governance and Employees (Melbourne University Press, 2008), and of Fair Trade and CSR: Experiments in Globalising Social Justice (Ashgate, 2010) (with Kate Macdonald). She has published widely regarding the intersection of labour law and corporations law, as well as labour market regulation in developing and transitional contexts, drawing on regulatory theory (click here for a list of her publications). Prior to commencing work as an academic she was employed as a public interest lawyer and on a campaign to improve the conditions of homebased workers in the textile clothing and footwear industry in Australia. Shelley’s most recent work was with informal homebased workers in light industries in Bulgaria.

dr kate macdonald

Kate MacDonald is a Lecturer at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research examines emerging systems of global economic governance, with a particular focus on social, labour and human rights governance arrangements and their implications for developing countries. Before taking up her current job in Melbourne she held positions at London School of Economics, Australian National University and Oxford University. She has carried out research and consultancy work for a range of development and human rights organisations, including ActionAid Australia, Amnesty International and the UK ’s Corporate Responsibility Coalition.

Michael simon

Michael Simon is the Advocacy Coordinator for Oxfam Australia’s People, Infrastructure & Environment team. He has extensive experience working with communities and partner organisations in the Mekong on issues of corporate and donor accountability. He has also worked extensively on regional accountability frameworks at the policy level, including participation in the recent review of the Asian Development Bank’s Accountability Mechanism. Since joining Oxfam Australia in 1996, Michael has led high-level representation to governments, multilateral organisations and business. He has extensive field experience, having worked in South Asia, East Asia, South America, Africa, the United States and Europe.

Bill Morton is currently International Development Policy Analyst at Oxfam Australia. He brings extensive experience on aid and international development issues to this research program. He has worked as a development practitioner and program manager, consultant, and more recently, as a researcher and policy analyst. His key areas of expertise are the international aid effectiveness policy agenda, governance of the international aid architecture, civil society and aid effectiveness, and Southern perspectives on aid effectiveness. Much of this work has considered the relationship between accountability and aid effectiveness, and he has a particular interest in the impact of aid interventions on community level accountability processes.

Bill’s international development experience started with Community Aid Abroad/ Oxfam Australia where he was Program Coordinator on the Horn of Africa program. After further work as an international development project manager, he completed a Masters of International Development (RMIT). He then transitioned to a policy and research role with The North-South Institute, a Canadian international development think tank, where he was Senior Researcher and responsible for coordinatingthe Institute’s development cooperation research program . He has managed large scale research programs and published widely on aid and development issues. He started his professional career as a social worker, working on community development programs.

David Pred is the Managing Associate of Inclusive Development International (IDI), an association of advocates, researchers, and educators working to make the global development paradigm more just and inclusive.  Previously, David founded and served between 2005-2011 as Executive Director of Bridges Across Borders Cambodia (BABC), an international solidarity organization working to support people’s action for social justice, inclusive development and human rights in Cambodia. In 2012, he oversaw the localization and transformation of BABC into the national organization Equitable Cambodia, and continues to support the new organization in a partnership capacity through IDI.

David has been a vocal advocate for land, housing and natural resource rights in Cambodia.  He co-founded the Housing Rights Task Force (HRTF), a coalition of local and international organizations working to end forced evictions and promote the right to adequate housing in Cambodia, and he served on its Core Committee from 2007-2009. He has supported communities to access and engage with international human rights treaty bodies, as well as corporate and multi-lateral institutions’ accountability mechanisms, including a landmark case before the World Bank Inspection Panel on the Cambodia Land Management and Administration Project.

He has extensive experience developing popular education and empowerment materials on human rights, democracy, inclusive development, land law, IFI safeguard policies, accountability mechanisms and advocacy skills.  He has facilitated training workshops on various human rights topics in Cambodia, Timor Leste, and Papua New Guinea.

Pauline Taylor McKeown is the Mekong Regional Program Manager for Oxfam Australia, based in Phnom Penh. She will be a key member of the Steering Committee. She has over 25 years of international development experience, nineteen at a senior management level. Most recently she was Head of the International Program Department for Caritas in England and Wales managing work in Asia, Middle East, Latin America and the Tsunami. During that time she led the organisation through accreditation for the Humanitarian Accountability Project (HAP) which covered emergency and development work through partners and she designed and implemented the complaints procedures. As a global advisor on Child Rights and participation she has trained on rights based programming and supported teams to implement at field level. She has lived and worked in South East Asia regularly and has a good understanding of the development challenges in the regional economic model. Throughout her career she has commissioned and worked with research teams and is committed to ensuring research is robust, informs practice and is accessible to the people who can most benefit from the findings.