Law School

Dr Terefe Gebreyesus

Teaching Associate
TC Beirne School of Law
Affiliate of Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law
Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law
Terefe Gebreyesus

Terefe’s PhD examines constitutional approaches toward diversity and complexities associated with identity politics and its impact on constitutional design. It aims to understand constitutional arrangements and practices that foster or hinder political stability in countries with sharp ethnic, religious, or linguistic differences. The thesis uses a comparative approach, looking into the constitutional designs and practices of several countries that use their constitution to handle diversity.

Terefe holds the degrees of Bachelor of Laws, Juris Doctor and Masters of Laws in American and International Law. His desire to understand the major legal systems of the world led him to leave his prestigious career as a federal judge in Ethiopia to study American law from an Asian perspective in South Korea.

Before commencing his postgraduate study, he worked as a federal public prosecutor with the Ministry of Justice of Ethiopia, specialising in sexual abuse, crimes against children and domestic violence offences. During this period, he prosecuted hundreds of cases. He led police investigations and independently litigated cases at the trial and appellate courts, including the Supreme Court. Then Terefe was appointed as one of the youngest federal judges at the federal first instance (trial court) in Addis Ababa by the Federal Parliament at the nomination of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia. His docket as a judge focused mainly on criminal and family law matters during that time.

Terefe has also taught Australian constitutional law for undergraduate students and provided lectures as an invited lecturer for graduate students at the University of Queensland, School of Law and jurisprudence and legal theory in Ethiopia. In addition to constitutional law, Terefe’s research and teaching interests lie in comparative constitutional law, Australian constitutional law, the law of evidence, family law, civil and common law legal systems, public law, jurisprudence, democracy and identity politics, law and politics, and human rights.

HDR project Title: Constitutional Approach to Diversity: Comparative Analysis

Supervisor: Professor Nicholas Aroney and Dr Caitlin Goss

Scholarship: University of Queensland Research Scholarship (UQRS)

Publications

Book Chapter (1)
Conference Papers (10)
Research Reports (4)

Book Chapter

Aroney, Nicholas, Gebreyesus, Terefe and Hussein, Twana (2024). Pluralised constituent power in two nominal federations: Ethiopia and Iraq. Comparative federalism: a pluralist approach. (pp. 109-130) edited by Felix Mathieu, Alain-G. Gagnon and Dave Guentte. Montreal, Canada: Centre d'analyse Politique-Constitution et federalisme. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-51093-9_6

Conference Papers

Gebreyesus, Terefe (2023). Constitutional Approaches to Diversity: A New Theoretical Perspective. 2023 Australasian Law Academics Association Conference, Christchurch, New Zealand, 6-8 July 2023.
Gebreyesus, Terefe (2023). Constitutional Approaches to Diversity and Perceptions about the Nature of Local and National Identities in Divided Countries: A Comparative Study. International Society of Public Law (ICON-S) Annual Conference, Wellington, New Zealand, 3-5 July 2023.
Gebreyesus, Terefe (2023). Constitutional approaches to diversity: a new theoretical perspective. International Society of Public Law (Icon-s) Summer School for Junior Scholars, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 21-30 June 2023.
Gebreyesus, Terefe (2023). Constituent power in the Ethiopian constitution. Perspectives on a Fair and Durable Constitutional (Re) Settlement in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Online, 24-25 May 2023.
Gebreyesus, Terefe (2022). Constitutional approaches to diversity: analysing integrative and disintegrative aspects of constitutional mechanisms. ICON-S Annual Conference , Wroclaw, Poland, 4-5 July 2022.
Gebreyesus, Terefe (2022). Constitutional approaches to diversity: a comparative analysis. UQ BEL Coloquium, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 20 July 2022.
Gebreyesus, Terefe (2022). Democratic transition without foundation: Ethiopia as an example. 11th World Congress of Constitutional Law, Johannesburg, South Africa, 5-9 December 2022.
Gebreyesus, Terefe (2022). Subsidiarity principle and diversity management through federalism: Do they compliment or contradict?. 11th World Congress of Constitutional Law, Johannesburg, South Africa, 5-9 December 2022.
Gebreyesus, Terefe (2021). Analysing integrative and disintegrative aspects of the Ethiopian and Indian constitutions. Federalism in Contemporary Public Law: Comparative Federalism, Moscow, Russia, 11 November 2021.
Gebreyesus, Terefe (2011). Problems with the investigation and prosecution of sexual violence and child abuse offenses in Addis Ababa. Conference About Criminal Justice in Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2-3 July 2011.

Research Reports

Gebreyesus, Terefe, Seang, Sovatey and Gborie, Manius (2017). Comparative insight on addressing air pollution in Mongolia.
Gebreyesus, Terefe, Gborie, Manius and Seang, Sovatey (2017). Comparing the levels of protection for domestic violence victims.
Gebreyesus, Terefe, Seang, Sovatey and Gborie, Manius (2017). Comparing anti-drug trafficking laws with lenient and severe punishment.
Gebreyesus, Terefe , Girma, Nebiat and Chanyalew, Tigist (2012). How to measure the performance of the Ethiopian criminal justice system.