Claire Higgins

Claire Higgins is a Senior Research Fellow at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Law School, and an Affiliate Scholar at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of International Migration. She holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Oxford, where she was a Clarendon Scholar. Her research focuses on refugee policy, migration history, and international law, with a particular emphasis on refugee resettlement, protected entry procedures, and the historical evolution of asylum systems.

Dr. Higgins has held an Australian Research Council DECRA grant to study the history of protected entry mechanisms for refugees and co-leads an ARC Linkage project on skilled refugee employment in regional Australia. She has published extensively on topics such as Australia's refugee policy origins, comparative refugee admissions programs, and the diplomatic dimensions of resettlement agreements. Her 2017 book *Asylum by Boat: Origins of Australia’s Refugee Policy* critically examines the historical roots of Australia's offshore processing policies.

Her work bridges historical analysis with contemporary policy, addressing issues like the ethics of in-country processing, labor mobility for refugees, and the global compact for refugees. Awards include a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship (2018) and recognition for her contributions to refugee law and policy discourse.