Ruby Rosselle Tugade
Ruby Rosselle “Ross” Tugade is a Filipino lawyer with grounded practice in international human rights, international criminal law, and transitional justice. She is a PhD in Law researcher at the Faculty of Law & Justice, supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program scholarship. Ross is a member of the Editorial Board of Feminist Legal Studies and an Associate of the Australia Human Rights Institute.
Prior to commencing her PhD studies at ݮƵ Sydney, Ross taught public international law, legal history, legal method, and ethics at the University of the Philippines College of Law, and human rights at the Ateneo de Manila University. Her legal practice dealt with situations of past and ongoing mass atrocities through the civil service and, later, in international non-profit work. She has served as counsel in public interest cases litigated before the Philippine Supreme Court.
Research Topic
Violence, Security, and Resistance: Mapping a Critical International Legal History of Anti-Communism in the Philippines
I look at the Philippines’ expanded anti-communist state policy as a critical case study that links violent colonial legal legacies, the role of international law in preserving the postcolonial nation-state, and the radical, counter-hegemonic possibilities opened up through and within international law itself.
Supervisor/s
Dr Ntina Tzouvala
Associate Professor Vicki Sentas
Areas of Interest
History and Theory of International Law, International Human Rights, International Criminal Law, Transitional Justice, Socio-Legal Studies
- Publications
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Ruby Rosselle L Tugade, ‘Perspectives on International Law Scholarship in Writing the Philippines-within-Asia in the Philippine Law Journal.’ (Forthcoming) 98(4) Philippine Law Journal.
Ruby Rosselle L Tugade, ‘Persistent Red-Tagging in the Philippines as Violation of the Principle of Distinction in International Humanitarian Law’ (2022) 95(3), Philippine Law Journal.
Ruby Rosselle L Tugade, ‘In Duterte’s Perfect Storm: A Rule of Law Dispatch in the Dire Days of Philippine Liberal Democracy’ (2021) 66(2) Ateneo Law Journal.
Ruby Rosselle L Tugade, ‘Beyond Legal Transformation: Assessing the Impact of Transitional Justice Mechanisms in the Philippines’ (2020) 93(1) Philippine Law Journal.
Ruby Rosselle L Tugade, ‘An Unwinnable War: Locating the Value of Life in the Middle of the Philippines’ Campaign Against Illegal Drugs’ (2019) 2 University of Asia & the Pacific Law Journal.
Raphael Lorenzo A Pangalangan, Gemmo B Fernandez, and Ruby Rosselle L Tugade, ‘Marcosian Atrocities: Historical Revisionism and the Legal Constraints on Forgetting’ (2018) 19(2) Asia Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law.
Ruby Rosselle L Tugade, ‘Understanding Insanity: Making Sense Out of Mental Illness in Philippine Law and Jurisprudence’ (2017) 90(4) Philippine Law Journal.
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Ruby Rosselle Tugade, ‘The Filipina in the Shadows of International Law’ in Claerwen O'Hara and Tamsin Phillipa Paige (eds), Queer Encounters with International Law: Times, Spaces, Imaginings (Routledge, 2024).
Raphael Lorenzo A Pangalangan, Isabel L Guidote, Gemmo B Fernandez, and Ruby Rosselle L Tugade, ‘Philippines: Civilized Vindications for Uncivilized Wrongs’ in Ekaterina Aristova and Uglješa Grušić (eds), Civil Remedies and Human Rights in Flux: Key Legal Developments in Selected Jurisdictions (Hart Publishing, 2022).
Roby Alampay and Ruby Rosselle L Tugade, ‘The Philippines’ in National Human Rights Institutions and Journalist Safety (International Media Support Book Series, 2022).
Ruby Rosselle Tugade, ‘Justice-Oriented Approaches to Pandemic-Related Human Rights Abuses in the Philippines’ in Joel Mark Barredo et al. (eds), Southeast Asia, Infected and Interrupted: Elevating Critical Voices on the State of Human Rights and Peace in the Time of COVID-19 (SHAPE-SEA, 2021).
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Ruby Rosselle L Tugade, ‘Duterte in the Hague tests Philippine engagement with international criminal law’ (NUS CIL Dialogues, 11 April 2025).
Ruby Rosselle L Tugade, ‘The Shifting Acts of Politics Beneath the Philippine Supreme Court’s Public Advocacy’ (IACL-AIDC Blog, 11 March 2025).
Ruby Rosselle L Tugade, ‘Ayungin Shoal and the Spectre of Informal International Law’ (New Mandala, 29 May 2024).
Gemmo B Fernandez and Ruby Rosselle L Tugade, 'Courtesy Resignations Won’t Solve the Philippine National Police’s Problems' (East Asia Forum, 7 March 2023).