The Australian National University (ANU) College of Asia and the Pacific is proud to present the Anthony Low Commonwealth Lecture 2026 - The Freedom Test: Can the Commonwealth Save Democratic Space?

An Australian lawyer and scholar with more than three decades of senior leadership across the United Nations, the Commonwealth and global civil society, Dr Anne Therese Gallagher AO will deliver the annual lecture, named in honour of former ANU Vice-Chancellor and Commonwealth of Nations scholar, the late Professor Anthony Low AO.

Around the world, democracy is under sustained pressure - not through dramatic collapse, but through the slow, inexorable narrowing of public space. Journalists are silenced, civil society is restricted, and open debate is increasingly constrained.

In this lecture, Dr Anne Gallagher AO explores whether the Commonwealth - often dismissed as a relic of a best-forgotten past - might offer something unexpectedly relevant to our shared future. Drawing on her leadership experience across the Commonwealth, the United Nations and ASEAN, she examines whether this unique community of 56 States, 2.7 billion people and a dense web of civil society and professional networks can help defend the conditions that make democratic life possible.

At the heart of the discussion is a simple but urgent question: can the Commonwealth - including the civil society organisations, movements and networks that give it life - pass the 'freedom test'? And what would it take to make that possible and what can that mean for our common future?

Dr Anne Therese Gallagher AO is widely recognised as the world-leading expert on the international law of human trafficking, she combines frontline policy leadership with deep academic and legal expertise.

Dr Gallagher joined the United Nations in 1992 and later served as Special Adviser to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She went on to lead the world’s largest and longest-running criminal-justice intervention against human trafficking, funded through the Australian Government.

From 2019 to 2025 Dr Gallagher served as Director-General of the Commonwealth Foundation, appointed by the Commonwealth’s 56 Member States to lead its work on democratic governance and civic participation and to advocate for the rights and interests of the Commonwealth’s 2.7 billion citizens.

In addition to a long-term appointment as Academic Adviser at Doughty St Chambers, Dr Gallagher has held senior global board leadership roles, including Chair of the Board of Girls Not Brides and President of the International Catholic Migration Commission. She is an alumna of the Australian National University and, in 2013, was appointed its inaugural Alumni of the Year.

The annual Commonwealth Lecture is an initiative of the Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) and the Commonwealth Round Table in Australia (CRTA) with thanks to ANU and the Low family for their ongoing support for this annual lecture.

This is an in-person only event.
Registration is essential as seating is strictly limited.

Professor Donald Anthony Low AO

Vice-Chancellor, Australian National University 1975–1982

Professor Donald Anthony Low AO (1927–2015) was Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University from 1975–1982. A distinguished scholar and renowned student mentor his work spanned modern African, Asian and Commonwealth history. He was Founding Dean of the School of African and Asian Studies and a founder of the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University (1964– 1972). Other distinguished posts included Director in the Research School of Pacific Studies, ANU (1973–1975), Smuts Professor of the History of the British Commonwealth, Cambridge (1983–1994) and President of Clare Hall, Cambridge (1987-1994), and Founding Convenor, CRTA Canberra, 2002. His numerous publications include: (ed.) Soundings in Modern South Asian History (1968), Constitutional Heads and Political Crises (1988), The Egalitarian Moment 1950–80 (1996), Fabrication of Empire: The British and the Uganda Kingdoms,1890–1902 (2009).

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