Rate My Professor Alan Berman

Dr Alan Berman serves as Professor and Dean of Law in the Faculty of Arts and Society at Charles Darwin University, a role he has held since 2018. He concurrently holds the position of Dean of Business and Accounting within the same faculty. Previously recognized as an Associate Professor of Law at CDU, Dr Berman maintains a longstanding interest in the regulation of hate crimes, having been one of a handful of academics invited to participate in the first White House Conference on Hate Crimes during the Clinton administration in 1997. His research specializations include indigenous peoples and international law, links between international human rights law and foreign policy, humanitarian intervention, the international rules regulating the use of force, gender and the law, sexuality and the law, international law and racial hate speech regulation, comparative constitutional law, legal responses to homophobic and transphobic abuse, harassment and violence, and rehabilitation and restorative justice. Dr Berman's work aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals such as Zero Hunger, Gender Equality, Reduced Inequalities, and Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. He is registered to supervise higher degree by research students and has produced 16 research outputs since 1990, with 56 citations and an h-index of 3.

Dr Berman's key publications include the book Speaking Out: Stopping Homophobic and Transphobic Abuse in Queensland (Australian Academic Press, 2010), nominated for a National Human Rights Award; Human Rights Law and Racial Hate Speech Regulation in Australia: Reform and Replace? (Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, 2015); When do People Value Rehabilitation and Restorative Justice Over the Punishment of Offenders? (Victims and Offenders, 2019, with S. Moss, E. Lee, and D.L. Rung); Privilege for Prejudice and Perverse Outcomes: The Proposed Religious Discrimination Bills (Court of Conscience, 2022, with M. Brady); and Assessment in the age of artificial intelligence: Interdisciplinary analysis of ChatGPT response to higher education assessment tasks (Knowledge Management and E-Learning, 2025, with multiple co-authors). Additional works feature in high-ranking journals such as Stanford Journal of International Law, Texas International Law Journal, Oxford University Comparative Law Forum, and Cambridge International Journal of Law in Context. He served as Project Manager and Chief Investigator for a grant-funded project from the Queensland Department of Justice and Attorney General investigating legal responses to homophobic and transphobic violence in Queensland. Dr Berman's scholarship has been cited in leading treatises, governmental and non-governmental reports, and by legal scholars as well as French and Australian anthropologists.