Ebony Birchall

Dr Ebony Birchall is a Lecturer at Macquarie Law School, Deputy Director of the BHR Access to Justice Lab (A2J Lab) and Lawyer on Macquarie University's ethics committee for high-risk medical research.

Ebony runs Macquarie Law School's Strategic Litigation Clinic, which provides the opportunity for law students to design strategic litigation on a range of social justice issues, with assistance from leading Australian litigators. She convenes two law subjects: Refugee Law and Torts. She also supervises several honours and post graduate research students. 

Ebony is a researcher with impact, as recognised through her success in securing several research prizes and grants, including the Macquarie University's Emerging Scholar Award for Research with Impact in 2022, and the Early and Mid-Career Researcher Fellowship in 2025. Her area of research focus relates to challenging human rights abuse by powerful actors such as business and governments. Her work is motivated to strengthen legal and non-legal mechanisms for overcoming power imbalances, with the aim of improving access to justice.

Ebony is currently editing a collection on strategic human rights litigation in Australia. The collection brings together contributions from around 25 leaders in Australian human rights litigation, to be published by Federation Press in 2025. She is also drafting a book on human rights in Australia's immigration detention network. She is also running several projects in her capacity as a leader of the A2J Lab - more information on the Lab can be found here.

Prior to joining Macquarie University, Ebony practised as a human rights lawyer for over a decade. Her litigation practice was at the forefront of Australian-based strategic litigation. Cases included the Manus Island Class Action, Australia’s largest human rights case at the time of resolution, which resulted in the Australian Government and several businesses who operated the detention facility paying $90million in compensation and costs. She also acted on behalf of almost 10,000 people from refugee backgrounds in the 2014 Immigration Data Breach Litigation, the first matter to use Australian privacy legislation to achieve accountability through compensation for a mass privacy breach. Other cases include the Essure Contraceptive Device Class Action and the Strip Search Class Action against NSW Police. 

Ebony partners with several community legal centres and advocacy networks. She has appeared in all of Australia’s major media outlets and is a sought-after speaker at community/advocacy events. She holds a PhD in law, and undergraduate degrees in law and business from the University of Wollongong. She completed postgraduate studies in human rights at the University of Sydney, and studied international human rights law (business and human rights) at the University of Oxford. 

Dr Ebony Birchall supervises several honours and post graduate research students. She encourages interested potential research students to contact her to discuss her availability.

She is able to supervise research on topics related to strategic litigation, accountability of business and governments, access to justice.