Karen Yeung

Karen is currently working on several projects exploring the role of technology as an instrument for shaping and constraining individual and institutional behaviour and is particularly interested in the following areas: Accountability and Legitimacy in the Regulatory State; the Politics of Regulation; Regulatory Instruments; Technology as a policy instrument; Tools of Government Enforcement and Compliance; Public Law and Governance; Constitutional Dimensions of Regulatory Governance; Rights and Regulation; Theories of Regulation; Governance Beyond the State.

Teaching

Undergraduate

•  Public Law

Graduate

•  Regulatory Policy and Practice
•  Understanding Regulation

After completing a combined Law/Commerce degree at the University of Melbourne, Karen Yeung came to the United Kingdom in 1993 as a Rhodes Scholar to read for the Bachelor of Civil Law at Oxford University where she also completed her D Phil. Following this, she spent ten years as a University Lecturer at Oxford University and as a Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. Professor Yeung joined the Dickson Poon School of Law as a Chair in Law in September 2006. She joined the School to help establish the Centre for Technology, Law & Society (‘TELOS’), of which she is now Director.  In that role, she is keen to foster collaboration between academics across various disciplines concerned with examining the social, political and ethical implications of technological development, and in seeking to promote informed, reflective technology policy making and implementation.

Professor Yeung has established an international reputation in two fields: as an academic pioneer in helping to establish the intellectual coherence and value of regulation studies (or ‘regulatory governance’ studies) as a field of scholarly inquiry (with a recent interest in regulation within healthcare contexts) and as a leading scholar concerned with critically examining the governance of, and governance through, new and emerging technologies. 

She has acted as advisor to various government bodies and policy-makers, including the Department of Health, The Health Service Research Network, the National Audit Office, Department of Community and Local Government, The Bar Standards Board, and the Australian competition regulator (the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission) and has contributed to several governmental reform projects in the area of regulatory enforcement.  She is admitted to practice as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria (Australia), having completed a brief stint in professional legal practice.