Rate My Professor Lili Song

Dr Lili Song is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Otago. She earned an LLB from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, an LLM from East China University of Political Science and Law, and a PhD in Law from Victoria University of Wellington. Before joining Otago, she taught at the University of the South Pacific in Vanuatu and held research or visiting positions at Harvard University, Oxford University, University of Michigan, the East-West Center in Honolulu, Melbourne University, the Australian National University, Chiang Mai University, the Humanities Institute in Myanmar, and Northwestern University. Prior to academia, she practiced as a lawyer at an international law firm and served as in-house counsel at an international commercial bank in Shanghai, China. In 2012, she interned with the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs in New York.

Song's primary research and teaching specializations are refugee law and migration law, complemented by work on Chinese and Pacific legal issues; she has conducted fieldwork in Myanmar, South Korea, China, India, and the Cook Islands. Key publications include her book Chinese Refugee Law and Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 'The good faith requirement in New Zealand refugee law' (International Journal of Refugee Law, 2026), and 'The Republic of China (Taiwan) and international refugee law: 1911–2024' (2025). She has received the Michael and Suzanne Borrin Foundation Women Leaders in Law Fellowship, Australian Endeavour Postdoctoral Fellowship, Michigan Grotius Fellowship, New Zealand Law Foundation research grant, Asia New Zealand Foundation research grant, Human Rights in Asia fellowship, and Victoria University of Wellington Postgraduate Research Excellence Award. Song edits the Otago Law Review and serves on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Refugee Law, Journal of South Pacific Law, Climate Law and Policy, and New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies. She is a member of the University of Otago's Centre for Global Migrations and the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, former secretary of the New Zealand Asian Studies Society, and provides Country of Origin Information expert reports to asylum courts and tribunals. She convenes and lectures courses including LAWS 403 Immigration and Refugee Law and LAWS 353 Law in the South Pacific.