Michelle Lesh holds a BA/LLB (Hons) from Monash University and a PhD from Melbourne University. Her doctorate assessed the legality of Israel’s policy of targeted killing according to international humanitarian law. It was written under the supervision of Professor Tim McCormack (Melbourne University), Associate Professor Alison Duxbury (Melbourne University) and Professor Michael N. Schmitt (U.S. Naval War College).

 Michelle worked at B’Tselem, and Israeli human rights organisation in 2004, and as a foreign law clerk to President (ret.) Aharon Barak at the Supreme Court of Israel in 2006. During this period she worked on the targeted killing judgment. From 2007-2008 she worked as an editor of the Correspondents’ Reports of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law. From 2008-2010 she taught on the history of the Arab/Israeli conflict at Monash University. Michelle also worked as a legal assistant to the foreign observer of the Turkel Commission, The Public Commission to Examine the Maritime Incident of 31 May 2010 (Part II: Inquiry into the Israeli mechanisms for examining and investigating allegations of violations of the laws of armed conflict – “The investigation policy”) in 2011-2012. Michelle was awarded the Golda Meir Postdoctoral fellowship to the Hebrew University for 2012-2013.

 Michelle’s areas of research include international humanitarian law, international human rights law and the interaction between these bodies of law. She is looking at this particularly from the perspective of the legal controversy over targeted killing