Dr Melanie O’Brien is Senior Lecturer in International Law at the UWA Law School, University of Western Australia

Dr O'Brien's research and supervision areas include international criminal law, international human rights law, international humanitarian law (IHL), feminist legal theory, public international law, comparative criminal law, peacekeeping, and military law. She has published in leading academic journals and is on the Editorial Boards of Human Rights Review and The International Journal of Human Rights, and served on the Editorial Board of Genocide Studies and Prevention (2013-2017). 

Dr O'Brien is the Second Vice-President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), and a member of the WA International Humanitarian Law Committee of the Australian Red Cross.

Dr O'Brien's book, Criminalising Peacekeepers: Modernising National Approaches to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse was published in 2017 in Palgrave's Transnational Crime, Crime Control and Security series.