Cristy Clark

Biography

Dr Cristy Clark is a Lecturer at the Southern Cross University School of Law and Justice. Cristy completed her BA/LLB at the Australian National University and did her honours research in comparative constitutional law, with a focus on the appropriate scope of the implied freedom of political communication in Australia. After graduating, Cristy worked for a year at Freehills in the Planning and Environment section, before returning to university to complete a Masters in International Social Development at the University of New South Wales. Her masters research focused on the human rights to food and water and this lead her into a PhD, this time back in the Faculty of Law. Cristy?s thesis focused on the emerging human right to water and contained two case studies. The first case study examined the effect of privatising Manila?s water and sanitation system, particularly on access to water for the poor. The second case study examined the effect of introducing prepaid water meters into the community of Phiri in Soweto, Johannesburg and included an analysis of the Mazibuko water rights case in which members of the Phiri community argued (unsuccessfully) that the prepaid water meters violated South Africa?s constitutionally guaranteed right to water. During her candidature, Cristy taught Corporations Law, Contracts, and Equity at the ANU College of Law. She also spent some time living in Vientiane, Laos and Hanoi, Vietnam.

Research Interest

Dr Cristy Clark is interested in examining mechanisms for realising human rights to basic services, particularly in the context of informal settlements in the Global South and remote communities in Australia. She is also interested in the right to community participation in relation to development approvals - particularly for environmentally risky resource extraction.