Charles Hunt

Professor Hunt is an accomplished researcher. He is widely published, having authored/edited seven books and over forty peer-reviewed articles and chapters.

Charles' research in the field of international relations, security studies, peace and conflict studies has four main foci:

The first looks at the changing nature of United Nations (UN) peace operations. In particular, it examines at the implications of trends towards a greater focus on civilian protection, more involvement in post-conflict peacebuilding and an increased willingness to use force as part of mandate implementation. As part of this work, Charles was the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Fellowship (2017–2021) that aimed to assess the evolving roles and emerging impacts of police peacekeepers, specifically as they relate to implementing protection of civilians mandates. He was also a Chief Investigator (along with Professor Alex Bellamy, University of Queensland) on an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant (2016–2020) that aimed to evaluate the impacts of more 'robust' civilian protection and stabilisation-focused missions for UN peacekeeping overall as well as for myriad other actors operating in the same space, such as the development and humanitarian communities. He is widely published on these issues, including recent articles in Survival, International Affairs, International Peacekeeping, Global Governance, Australian Journal of International Affairs, and Stability.

The second relates to the peacebuilding and governance in conflict-affected societies and regions. This body of work – including as a Chief Investigator on multi-year research projects funded by the Australian government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Gerda Henkel Stiftung in Germany – examines the empirical realities of social order in the 'differently ordered' states of West Africa (Ghana, Liberia, Mali) and Oceania (Bougainvillle-PNG, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands). This research features theoretical, empirical and applied dimensions and employs a critical lens to dominant and conventional paradigms and practices. It therefore advocates for new approaches to conflict transformation processes based on conceptualisations of development that understand the state as a more holistic and complex political order drawing on insights from theories of hybridity and relationality. As such, it emphasises the connections to everyday experiences of governance and accountability and differences across different contexts according to a range of exclusionary horizontal inequalities. This area of work aims to contribute to more realistic, effective international efforts to support conflict resolution in complex, heterogeneous security contexts. It further focuses on accounts of the intricate inter-relationships between international, regional and national actors as well as those at the local level that constitute sites of both resilience and resistance. Stemming from this work, Dr Hunt is co-editor of: Exploring Peace Formation: Security and Justice in Post-Colonial States (Routledge, 2018) and a number of articles, including those published in Conflict and Cooperation, the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, and Global Change, Peace and Security.

The third focus relates to issues of monitoring and evaluation, impact assessment and organisational learning in efforts to support and build peace. This work emerges from a multi-year research project funded by the Australian Federal Police developing a framework for assessing the impact of police capacity-development initiatives overseas. Research in this area draws on complexity theory and advocates for new epistemological thinking as well as adjustments to practical approaches to assessment in order to enhance the effectiveness of peacebuilding and development. On these issues, Charles is author of numerous books, articles and policy reports, including: UN Peace Operations and International Policing: Navigating Complexity, Assessing Impact and Learning to Learn (Routledge, 2015); and, co-authored with B. Hughes and J. Curth-Bibb, Forging New Conventional Wisdom Beyond International Policing: Learning from Complex, Political Realities (Martinus Nijhoff, 2013). He is also a founding member of the 'Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network' (EPON) and was lead author of one of its major reports, UN Peace Operations and Human Rights: A Thematic Study (NUPI, 2024).

The fourth area of research is focused on the normative character and trajectory of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as well as the policy and practice dimensions of efforts to prevent mass atrocities more generally. Charles is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect where he was the leader for the protection of civilians program from 2009 to 2015. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal, Global Responsibility to Protect and has published widely on these issues, including: Charles T. Hunt and Phil Orchard, eds., Constructing the Responsibility to Protect: Consolidation and Contestation (Routledge, 2020) and Charles T. Hunt and Noel M. Morada, eds., Regionalism and Human Protection: Reflections from Southeast Asia and Africa (Brill, 2018).