Dr John Morss

John R Morss is a Senior Lecturer in Deakin Law School. John was born in London and trained in Psychology at Sheffield and Edinburgh Universities in the UK and in Law at the University of Otago in New Zealand. He completed his professional training for admission to practise Law in Dunedin (New Zealand) in 2003 and received reciprocal recognition in the Supreme Court of Victoria in the same year.

John's scholarship is always informed by interdisciplinarity. He has published extensively in his two disciplines of Psychology and Law, having published in total 7 books (3 sole-authored), over 30 refereed journal articles and 10 book chapters, with more forthcoming. In Law, his research focus is on conceptual issues in Public International Law, on which he brings to bear critical perspectives from the social sciences and humanities. His current project, which brings together interests from many years, is the articulation of an approach to global governance and global justice that is at the same time collective and pluralist.

John continues to publish in disciplines related to Psychology and its philosophical dimensions. John's book in  1990, 'The Biologising of Childhood: Developmental Psychology and the Darwinian Myth', has been reissued by Routledge in late 2017.

Before his appointment to Deakin Law School, John was for 13 years a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Otago NZ. He is familiar with pedagogical issues and principles as they relate to the tertiary sector. John was employed on a continuing basis as a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer at the University of Ulster in the UK in 1980 to 1986, and at the University of Otago in New Zealand from 1986 to 1999. He held positions of responsibility in all the long-term posts, most recently Associate Head of School in Research in Deakin Law School from 2004 to 2012, at various times Acting Head of School, including a period of 4.5 months in 2007, and Director LLB from 2015 to 2016.

John has experience from three other universities on a short-term and research-focused basis, namely; Cambridge University, Charles Sturt University and Victoria University. He spent three periods as a visiting researcher at Cambridge University. During the year-long visit in 1993 to the Social and Political Studies Faculty, he taught a lecture series and conducted ‘supervisions’ and tutorials (individual and small group teaching respectively) as well as being the second marker in the first-year examination for Social Psychology.

John was a Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge and By-Fellow, Churchill College, the University of Cambridge in 2008. He was a Visiting Fellow in the Law Department at European University Institute in Florence in 2010, and Visiting Researcher at Sheffield Centre for International and European Law, Sheffield University Law School in 2012.

He has been an active member of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, formerly the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation, at Deakin University ADI for a number of years, and has been a member of the Executive Group for the ADI.