Professor Bina D'Costa

Bina D'Costa is a Professor at the Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University. At the height of Europe’s refugee emergency, she moved to the UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti to build its Migration and Displacement program (2016-2018). 

As a UN staff member, Bina has worked in South and Southeast Asia, Eastern and Southern Africa, and the Middle East. Her research interests span migration, children and conflict, gender, human rights and justice. She has undertaken studies on refugees, stateless communities and IDPs, and has provided inputs and technical advice to Human Rights bodies, UN agencies and NGOs. Most recently, she has served in UNICEF’s Rohingya Emergency Response Team in Cox’s Bazar Bangladesh. Her publications include books- Cascades of Violence: War, Crime and Peacebuilding Across South Asia (co-authored with John Braithwaite, ANU Press, 2018); Children and Violence: The Politics of Conflict in South Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2016); Children and Global Conflict (co-authored with Kim Huynh and Katrina Lee-Koo, Cambridge University Press, 2015); Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia (Routledge, 2011, 2013); Marginalisation and Impunity: Violence against Women and Girls in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHTC and IWGIA, 2014, 2016); and Gender and the Global Politics of the Asia-Pacific (co-editor with Katrina Lee-Koo, Palgrave, 2010). 

She has held visiting fellowships at the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies, Geneva (2012-14); the Refugee Studies Center, Oxford University (2011-12) and the Global Justice Center, New York (2008). Bina has also served as the Asia Rapporteur for the Asia-Europe 55 member states ASEM global meeting on Children and Human Rights in 2017. Also, she has contributed to policy research in OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights), the UNRISD (United Nations Research in Social Development), AUSAID (now in DFAT),  USAID and UKAID (Department for International Development, UK).