2026 Langmore Oration: Professor Susan Harris Rimmer Presents 'Peace Gaming in the Anthropocene - Reflections from Oceania'

The University of Melbourne is pleased to welcome Professor Susan Harris Rimmer for the 2026 Langmore Oration, Peace Gaming in the Anthropocene: Reflections from Oceania.

A researcher at Griffith Law School, Professor Harris Rimmer is a leading authority on climate justice, human rights, gender equality and ethical governance. Her practice-led research examines how climate and gender risks are being incorporated into law, policy and institutional decision-making, with a particular focus on future generations, climate justice and the challenges of governing complex social and environmental change.

In this year’s Langmore Oration, Professor Harris Rimmer will situate John Langmore’s longstanding work on peacebuilding and human rights within a climate justice framework, exploring the increasingly interconnected challenges of climate change, gender equality and international security.

Climate change is increasingly recognised as a “threat multiplier”, with climate variability expected to increase the risk of organised armed conflict. Yet traditional security frameworks, including those used in Australia and at the international level, continue to struggle to account for these non-traditional and interconnected risks.

At the same time, the transition to net zero requires profound social and economic transformation. Professor Harris Rimmer will consider what it means to ensure this transition is just: one that upholds human rights, creates decent work, advances gender equality and does not leave marginalised communities behind.

Drawing on developments in international climate law, feminist scholarship and her research across Oceania, Professor Harris Rimmer will ask how we can respond to these overlapping challenges with sufficient urgency, and whether we can recognise the value of investing in peace, gender equality and a just climate transition before the risks become even more difficult to manage.

Professor Harris Rimmer is a Fulbright Scholar, World Economic Forum Top Innovator and founder of EveryGen. She was the independent reviewer of Queensland’s Human Rights Act 2019, with her resulting report, Placing People at the Heart of Policy (2025), examining opportunities for systems-level reform. Her latest books are Future Generations Policy, Governance and Leadership (Springer, 2026), co-authored with Taylor Dee Hawkins, Elise Stephenson, Matthew Day and Amie Furlong, and Climate Politics in Oceania (MUP, 2024), co-authored with Caitlin Byrne and Wesley Morgan.

The Langmore Oration continues a tradition of bringing leading thinkers and practitioners to Melbourne to explore pressing questions of peacebuilding, human rights and global justice.