Irene Watson

Teaching Strengths

Experiential teaching
Innovative teaching

Prof Irene Watson

Bradley Distinguished Professor

School of Law

College of Business and Law

Professor Irene Watson is a Researh Professor of Law with Justice and Society, at the University of South Australia, where her research focuses on Indigenous Peoples, colonialism and international law. Professor Watson belongs to the Tanganekald, Meintangk, Bunganditj and Potaruwutj First Nations Peoples, of the South East of South Australia. From 2016-2023 Irene was appointed as Pro Vice Chanellor Aboriginal Leadership and Strategy and David Unaipon Chair, at the University of South Australia. Irene holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and a PhD in Law from the University of Adelaide, and was awarded the Bonython Prize for best law thesis in 2000. She previously held academic positions at the University of Adelaide and Flinders University Law Schools. Irene was a post-doctoral research fellow with the University of Sydney Law School from 2005 to 2008 when she took up an appointment at the David Unaipon College of Indigenous Research and Education at the Universty of South Australia. Professor Watson has provided independent academic opinions to First Nations Peoples across Australia for some 40 years. In 1989 she was acknowledged for her scholarship and her being the first Aboriginal law graduate in the dedication of the 'Irene Watson Room' at the Adelaide University Law School, this was given a ceremonial re-launch in 2016. Another room at the Adelaide University of Adelaide was dedicated to her in 1999 by the student union. In 1987 she was nominated by the National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) as  'SA Aboriginal of the Year'.  She has held a legal practicing certificate since 1985 and been a member of the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement in South Australia since 1973, where she served as a board member, legal practitioner and CEO. From 2010 until 2019 Irene was the Chairperson of Kungari Aboriginal Heritage Association, established in 1988 by Elders for the purpose of managing and protecting Aboriginal lands and culture in the South East region of S.A. She has served on numerous Aboriginal bodies across Australia, primarily concerned with advancing Aboriginal rights. She has written numerous journal articles and book chapters; her books include  Aboriginal Peoples, Colonialism, and International Law: Raw Law (Routledge 2015), and Indigenous Peoples as Subjects in International Law (Routledge 2017).

SA History Trust Grant awarded in (2023) in partnership with the S.A. National Trust, 'Telling the Whole Story: The Maria Creek Project'. This project engages across the south east region of South Australia, to advance two-way engagement and develop partnerships with the Kingston District Council and the South East  Landscape Board. The project enables the voices of Meintangk First Nations People to tell their story from the long perspective of 65,000 years connection to country. 

 ARC, project 'Managing Producing and Owning Knowledge in the 21st Century', DP200110578 was awarded in 2020 in colloboration with K. Bowrey, (UNSW) J. McKeough,(UTS) K. Pappalardo, (QUT) K. Weatherall (USYD) and T. Cochrane (QUT). This project investigated how open access to research can be improved and made more accessible to not only university researchers but for the public benefit also. However open access raises critical questions for First Nations who often have negative research experiences. The project is developing guides for both First Nations and researchers to navigate the legal regulatory framework of intellectual property laws, sector wide grant conditions, licensing agreements with libraries and university policies on intellectual property ownership, authorship, open access and engagement. Discussions with First Nations have focused on governance frameworks in developing guidelines which provide a two way approach that values and recognises Aboriginal ownership of Aboriginal Knowledges. The project objective is to: build specific understanding of the research interface with First Nations. The project team will hold a roundtable with the Academy of Social Sciences, at the conclusion of the project to introduce and discuss our findings. 

The Australian legal system and its response to Aboriginal law and culture, this project began in 2008 supported by an AIATSIS research grant. It is an archival reading of judicial constructions of Aboriginality across Australian legal history. The archive includes the earliest newspaper reports of South Australian courts from 1840-1860 which involve First Nations peoples coming before the courts for sentencing. Formal law reporting didn’t occur in South Australia until the 1860s. Court reports earlier than that are found in the archives of the newspapers and judges’ notebooks of the time. I have taken a decolonising approach to the archive, deploying a First Nations’ lens to analyse these reports. This project builds upon the data gathered to date and examines the universality of Australian law while opening space to a pluriversal view.

Year Citation
2025 Bowery, K., Cochrane, T., Hadley, M., McKeough, J., Pappalardo, K., Watson, I., & Weatherall, K. (2025). "Just Tick the Box": researcher understanding of intellectual property and open access research policies in publication practices at Australian Universities. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 13(1), 1-28.
DOI
2022 Bowrey, K., Watson, I., & Hadley, M. (2022). Decolonising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research. Australian Universities' Review, 64(1), 54-64.
2019 Watson, I. (2019). Colonial logic and the Coorong massacres. Adelaide law review, 40(1), 167-171.
2018 Watson, I. (2018). Aboriginal recognition: treaties and colonial constitutions, "We have been here forever...". Bond law review, 30(1, article no. 2), 7-18.
2018 Watson, I. (2018). Aboriginal relationships to the natural world: Colonial 'protection' of human rights and the environment. Journal of human rights and the environment, 9(2), 119-140.
DOI
2017 Watson, I. (2017). Aboriginal laws and colonial foundation. Griffith law review, 26(4), 469-479.
DOI
2016 Watson, I. (2016). First Nations and the colonial project. Inter Gentes, 1(1), 30-39.
2014 O'Brien, L., & Watson, I. (2014). In conversation with Uncle Lewis: bushfires, weather-makers, collective management. AlterNative: an international journal of Indigenous scholarship, 10(5), 450-461.
DOI
2014 Watson, I. (2014). Re-centring first nations knowledge and places in a terra nullius space. AlterNative: an international journal of Indigenous scholarship, 10(5), 508-520.
DOI
2012 Watson, I. (2012). The future is our past: we once were sovereign and we still are. Indigenous law bulletin, 8(3), 12-15.
2011 Watson, I. (2011). Aboriginal(ising) International Law and other centres of power. Griffith Law Review, 20(3), 619-640.
DOI
2011 Watson, I. (2011). Human rights law and Indigenous women. Feminists@law, 1(1), 1.
2011 Watson, I. (2011). The 2007 declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples: Indigenous survival - where to from here?. Griffith law review, 20(3), 507-514.
DOI
2010 Watson, I. (2010). Universality: what space exists for Aboriginality?. International journal of critical Indigenous studies, 3(1), 15-25.
2009 Watson, I. (2009). In the Northern Territory intervention what is saved or rescued and at what cost?. Cultural Studies Review, 15(2), 45-60.
2009 Watson, I. (2009). Sovereign space, caring for country, and the homeless position of Aboriginal peoples. South Atlantic quarterly, 108(1), 27-51.
DOI
2009 Watson, I. (2009). Aboriginality and the violence of colonialism. Borderlands E-journal, 8(1), 1-8.
2002 Watson, I. (2002). Buried alive. Law and Critique, 13(3), 253-269.
DOI
2002 Watson, I. (2002). Aboriginal laws and the sovereignty of terra nullius. Borderlands Journal, 1(2), 15-32.

Year Citation
2022 Watson, I. (2022). Inter-Nation relationships and the natural world as relation. In U. Natarajan, & J. Dehm (Eds.), Source details - Title: Locating Nature: Making and Unmaking International Law (pp. 354-374). UK: Cambridge University Press.
DOI
2021 Watson, I. (2021). Aboriginal peoples' authority and decolonization /. In S. Henty, & G. Foley (Eds.), Source details - Title: Indigenous Solidarity: Testimonies and Narratives (First edition ed., pp. 75-82). Gaza Strip, Palestine :: 28 Magazine,.
2018 Watson, I. (2018). Civilizing missions and humanitarian interventions: into the laws and territories of first nations. In J. Swiffen (Ed.), Source details - Title: Legal violence and the limits of the law (pp. 108-121). US: Routledge.
DOI
2017 Watson, I. (2017). What is the mainstream? The laws of First Nations peoples. In R. Levy (Ed.), Source details - Title: New directions for law in Australia : Essays in contemporary law reform (pp. 213-220). Canberra, Australia: Australian National University Press.
DOI
2017 Watson, I. (2017). Aboriginal laws of the land: surviving fracking, golf courses and drains among other extractive industries. In N. Rogers, & M. Maloney (Eds.), Source details - Title: Law as if earth really mattered: the wild law judgment project (pp. 209-218). UK: Routledge.
DOI
2017 Watson, I. (2017). First Nations, Indigenous Peoples: our laws have always been here. In I. Watson (Ed.), Source details - Title: Indigenous Peoples as subjects of international law (pp. 96-119). US: Routledge.
2017 Watson, I. (2017). Standing our ground and telling the one true story. In P. Dudgeon (Ed.), Source details - Title: Us women, our ways, our world (pp. 129-142). Australia: Magabala Books.
2017 Watson, I. (2017). Introduction - Indigenous Peoples as Subjects of International Law. In Source details - Title: Indigenous Peoples as Subjects of International Law (pp. 1-4). US: Routledge.
2016 Watson, I. (2016). Genocide, the state, and original first nations. In V. Negri, & I. Schulte-Tenckhoff (Eds.), Source details - Title: Mimesis la formation du droit international = Towards international normativity (pp. 171-186). France: Editions A. Pedone.
2016 Watson, I. (2016). 2003: From a hard place: negotiating a softer terrain. In H. Esmaeili, G. Worby, & S. Tur (Eds.), Source details - Title: Indigenous Australians, Social Justice and Legal Reform: Honouring Elliott Johnston (pp. 104-120). Australia: Federation Press.
2015 Watson, I., & Burns, M. (2015). Indigenous knowledges: a strategy for First Nations peoples engagement in higher education. In S. Varnham, P. Kamvounias, & J. Squelch (Eds.), Source details - Title: Higher education and the law (pp. 41-52). Australia: Federation Press.
2014 Watson, I. (2014). In the Northern Territory intervention, what is saved or rescued and at what cost?. In T. Neale, C. McKinnon, & E. Vincent (Eds.), Source details - Title: History, power, text: cultural studies and indigenous studies (pp. 167-185). Australia: UTSePress.
2014 Watson, I. (2014). First Nations stories, grandmother's law: too many stories to tell. In Source details - Title: Australian feminist judgments: righting and rewriting law (pp. 41-54). UK: Hart Publishing Limited.
2012 Watson, I., & Venne, S. (2012). Talking up Indigenous Peoples' original intent in a space dominated by state interventions. In E. Pulitano (Ed.), Source details - Title: Indigenous rights in the age of the UN declaration (pp. 87-109). UK: Cambridge University Press.
DOI
2010 Watson, I., & Venne, S. (2010). Sex, race and questions of Aboriginality. In M. Thornton (Ed.), Source details - Title: Sex discrimination in uncertain times (pp. 347-367). Canberra, ACT, Australia: ANU E-Press.
DOI
2010 Watson, I. M. (2010). Aboriginal worlds, genocide, ecocide and cycles of life returning. In Source details - Title: In the balance: art for a changing world (pp. 12-13). Australia: Museum of Contemporary Art Ltd.
2009 Watson, I. (2009). Assimilation agendas of the state: what space remains for Aboriginal law and culture. In P. Singh (Ed.), Source details - Title: Indigenous Identity and Activism (pp. 124-137). India: Shipra Publications.
2008 Watson, I. M. (2008). Aboriginal women's laws and lives: how might we keep growing the law?. In E. Johnston, M. Hinton, & D. Rigney (Eds.), Source details - Title: Indigenous Australians and the Law (2 ed., pp. 15-29). US: Taylor and Francis.
2008 Watson, I. (2008). De-colonising the space: dreaming back to country. In S. Morgan, T. Mia, & B. Kwaymullina (Eds.), Source details - Title: Heartsick for Country (pp. 90-107). Australia: Freemantle Arts Centre Press.
2007 Watson, I. (2007). Aboriginal Sovereignties: past, present and future (im)possibilities. In S. Perere (Ed.), Source details - Title: Our patch : enacting Australian sovereignty post-2001 (pp. 23-43). Australia: Network Books.

  • Indigenous Knowledge, Law, Society and the State, ARC Discovery Indigenous, 01/01/2013 - 31/12/2017

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