Dr Kevin Sobel-Read

I am a US-trained lawyer, legal scholar and anthropologist. I have a Bachelor of Arts (BA) from New York University, a Juris Doctor (JD) from the New York University School of Law, and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Cultural Anthropology, with a sub-specialty in Legal Anthropology, from Duke University, USA. My doctoral thesis, “Sovereignty, Law, and Capital in the Age of Globalization,” drew on fieldwork conducted in and around Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, and the Cook Islands, and is also based on preliminary research among the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina, USA.

I have previously been a Senior Lecturing Fellow in Duke University’s School of Law, a Visiting Assistant Professor in Duke’s Department of Cultural Anthropology and a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Law at the University of Turku, Finland.

I likewise have a decade of experience practising complex civil litigation with Morrison & Foerster LLP in New York City and with Ellis & Winters LLP in North Carolina, USA.

Research and Engagement
My broad-based scholarly research has been published in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Underlying these publications, my interests draw on two parallel and overlapping paths:

Global Value Chains: On the one hand I explore the role of global supply chains – in the form of what have been termed “global value chains” – in fundamentally transforming the way that international commerce takes place, both within and across borders, with consequences to nearly all aspects of policy and regulation. With my 2014 article “Global Value Chains: a Framework for Analysis” (5 Transnational Legal Theory 364), I was among the first scholars to engage meaningfully with the role of law in global value chains.

Sovereignty: At the same time, I am interested in ideas of sovereignty and in particular Indigenous sovereignty and the sovereignty of small island nations and territories. With a focus on relationships between law, capital-flow and governance, I have explored and draw on relationships and insights from the Cook Islands, the First Nations peoples of the Australian continent and its islands, the Faroe Islands, Åland and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, among others.

I am interested in relationships between commerce and sovereignty not only as ideas but also as areas of engagement. To this end I have co-created and coordinate the Newcastle Law School’s WIL-animated, service-learning-inspired and project-based course titled the Community Legal Development Project.

The First Nations Business Project: The aim of the First Nations Business Project that I conceived of and run is to benefit Indigenous businesspeople across Australia, and with them, their communities. The Project, which operates with students through the Community Legal Development Project course, recognises that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals start their businesses not for purposes of earning money but rather with a broader goal related to culture and community. The aim of the Project therefore is to help First Nations business owners to manage their businesses in ways that are consistent with – and specifically support and protect and promote – culture.

In order to achieve these objectives, the First Nations Business Project provides free legal services to individual business owners, in collaboration with the Newcastle Law School Legal Centre. Even more significantly, students in the Project are developing a unique handbook of legal tools, which we plan to distribute across Australia and which we are also working to develop as an interactive pdf, as a web-site and as an app. The impact of the Handbook is strategically focused on community-wide benefits in economic development, self-determination and sovereignty.

The Cook Islands: I have been visiting, researching on and supporting the Cook Islands since my first transformative visit to Rarotonga in 2007. Here at the Newcastle Law School I have developed programs with the government of the Cook Islands through which Newcastle Law School students have worked directly with government leaders to create change in the Cook Islands. This engagement has involved multiple pathways. On two occasions, with New Colombo Plan funding, I have travelled with students to Rarotonga where the students completed three-week intensive internships. I have likewise developed an ongoing program where both undergraduate and postgraduate students, through the Community Legal Development Project course, perform law-related tasks on behalf of the Cook Islands government, even without travel. Through legislative drafting, policy advice and the preparation of on-the-ground legal materials for laypeople, students in these projects have improved Cook Islanders’ safety, facilitated access to human rights protections and positioned the country to better protect itself under international law in the face of climate change.

Teaching

Courses: I have extensive teaching experience at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including substantive legal courses, legal research-and-writing courses, and interdisciplinary courses about law and its social context. Here at the Newcastle Law School, I have coordinated courses in Contracts, Commercial Law and International Trade Law, as well as the School’s Thesis/Advanced Research and Writing course. I have also co-created and coordinate the project-based course noted above, the Community Legal Development Project.

Previously, at Duke University’s Law School and in its Department of Cultural Anthropology, I taught courses including: Emerging International Business Practices: from Global Supply Chains to Global Value Chains; Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing for International Students; Sexuality and the Law; Human Rights: Law and Globalization; Introduction to Cultural Anthropology; and Anthropology of Law.

Initiatives: As Director of Teaching and Learning I have also been engaged in School-wide initiatives.

Curriculum-Wide Skills Integration: One of the most significant initiatives is the curriculum-wide integration of skills that took place through a framework that I conceived of and managed from the idea-stage through implementation. Through this initiative each student in the LLB(Hons) and JD programs, as well as in our masters programs, have now gained: improved skills during their coursework; a clearer overview of the content of their program; increased opportunities for tailoring their program to their needs; and a strongly enhanced platform for CV-building and job-searching. (see https://www.newcastle.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/650473/Law-School-Skills-Map_Digital.pdf)

Curricular Justice (“Indigenisation”) Project: In a collaborative process and with input from a range of stake-holders, I am also co-leading a curricular justice project for the benefit of Indigenous as well as non-Indigenous students. This project seeks to implement a long-term strategy at the Newcastle Law School for recognising, respecting and valuing Indigenous peoples’ legal systems, knowledges, and experiences. We do so through a lens of reciprocity and synthesising four approaches that draw on content, context, collaboration and classroom pedagogy.