Associate Professor Sanzhuan Guo

Associate Professor in Law

College of Business, Government and Law

+61 8 8201 3737

sanzhuan.guo@flinders.edu.au

Law & Commerce

GPO Box 2100, ADELAIDE, SA, 5001

Sanzhuan (Sandra) is an international lawyer, specialising in human rights and international migration law. She is Rapporteur of the International Law Association's Committee on International Migration and International Law (2021-2026). Sandra was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School Human Rights Program from Jan to June 2025.

Sandra joined Flinders in February 2015 and was the Course Coordinator of the Master of Laws (International Law and International Relations, MILIR) from May 2018 to Feb 2020, and led Flinders Migration Clinic from 2015 to 2017. Prior to Flinders, she practised law in Holding Redlich (Melbourne), The University of Melbourne (in-house lawyer), Jingtian & Gongcheng (Beijing), and GE Medical Systems(Beijing).

Qualifications

JD (Melb); PhD (Peking); LLM (Northwestern, USA); MA (Univ South Carolina); Master of Laws (Fa Xue Shuoshi) (Peking); BS and GradDip Law(Sichuan Uni)

Admitted to practise law in Australia (Victoria and South Australia), USA (New York) and China

LIV-Accredited Specialist in Immigraiton Law (since October 2016); Former Registered Migration Agent Number: 1280860

Honours, awards and grants

Grants, Scholarships and Consultancies

Australian Radioactive Waste Agency, 2025, Radioactive Waste Disposal and Intergenerational Equity (AUD149,590, Chief Investigator, together with Brendan Grigg (Lead), Svetlana Bogomolova, Naser Pourazad, Tahna Pettman and Laura Lesar

AFIPS Indo-Pacific Strategic Environment Grants 2025 (ASSA): Climate Change and Migration in the South Pacific: Governance, Rights and Technology ($20,000, Project Lead, with Thibaut Fleury Graff, Marguerite Taiarui, Logovaka Marilyn Moira Simmons, George Tian and Jessica Genauer)

Army History Grant 2024 (Department. of Defence): Blood and Belonging: Nationality and Chinese Australians Who Fought in WWI ($12,790, Project Lead, with Heidi Ing)

Law Foundation of South Australia 2024, 2025 and 2026, Establishing Flinders Mongolian Human Rights Internship ($6,500 for one intern in 2024; $31,370 for four interns in 2025; $36,745 for four interns in 2026)

Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Workshop Grant 2024: 'A Critical Lens on Mass Deportation of Non-citizens: Law, Crimes and Technology ' ($9,000, Project Lead, with Marinella Marmo and Margaret Davies)

Australia Awards Fellowship Mongolian Project 2023: Promoting Human Rights Based Development in Mongolia in the Digital Era ($268,808.70, Project Lead, with Tammy Joachin)

Asia Study Grant of the National Library of Australia, 'Dual Nationality, Overseas Chinese and International Relations: Past, Present and Future ' (2019)

DFAT New Colombo Plan: Human Rights in China: Perspectives of Law, Business and International Relations, 2019 ($99,000, Project Lead, with Anthony Langlois and Anne Gleeson)

Visiting Scholar at Xi'an Jiaotong University School of Law (2018)

Hague Academy of International Law, Research on Citizenship in International Law (2016)

Theo Murphy High Flyers Think Tanks 2016 - Australian Academy of Science (2016)

Seoul National University Law Global Challenge Visiting Scholar (2015/16)

John and Alison Kearney Overseas Scholarship (UVa, 2011)

Australian Endeavour Asia Award 2007 (ANU College of Law, Dec 2007 - Nov 2008) ($50,000)

China Scholarship Council Cotutelle Scholarship (RWI, Lund University, Oct 2006- Sept 2007) (~$20,000)

Expert Opinions

2025 invited expert opinion on Chinese laws, including dual nationality, in an Australian Federal Circuit and Family Court case

2020 and 2021 expert opinions on Chinese birth certificates, invited by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada; opinions cited in IRB, Responses to Information Requestion: No CHN200327.E and CHN200753.E

2020 and 2021 invited expert opinions on Chinese laws in relation to dual nationality, domicile/habitual residence and inheritance law in a case of the Supreme Court of South Australia: Kong v Yan [2021] SASC 82

Teaching interests