Rate My Professor Donna McNamara

McNamara specialises in international disability law, with research exploring access to justice, legal capacity, non-discrimination, healthcare law, and children’s rights, particularly for those in alternative care forms. Her fields of research include international humanitarian and human rights law, access to justice, and welfare, insurance, disability, and social security law. She has secured 14 research grants totalling $348,165, including lead investigator roles in projects such as a human rights evaluation of the health requirement under Australian migration law ($9,997, 2023), the human right to education in the Australian context ($4,656, 2023), and policing social welfare ($5,000, 2022). Key publications feature ‘Ensuring Universal Access: The Case for Medicare in Prison’ (Alternative Law Journal, 2023, with Linnane D and Toohey L), ‘The Blurred Distinction Between Therapeutic and Non-therapeutic Medical Interventions for Intersex Children in Australia’ (Australian Journal of Human Rights, 2022, with Duggan K), ‘Policing in the Age of the Asylum: Early Legislative Interventions in the Lives of Persons with Disabilities’ (Disability Studies Quarterly, 2021), and ‘The “Necessity” of Austerity and its Relationship with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: A Case Study of Ireland and the United Kingdom’ (Human Rights Law Review, 2021, with O’Sullivan C). She teaches and coordinates courses including Health Law, Evidence Law, Criminal Law and Procedure, Child Law, and Competitive Mooting. McNamara has presented her research at international conferences and contributed to policy advising for human rights organisations in Ireland.