Melissa Parke was the Federal Member of Fremantle, Western Australia for the Australian Labor Party. She was the Minister for International Development in the Rudd ministry, from July to September 2013. Ms Parke retired from politics in May 2016.
Prior to entering politics, she was a lawyer for the United Nations and had worked for the UN in Kosovo, Lebanon, Gaza, and New York. She was also a law lecturer at Murdoch University, the principal solicitor at the Bunbury Community Legal Centre, and in private legal practice in Sydney and Western Australia.
In September 2017, Ms Parke was appointed as an Ambassador for ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons). In October 2017, ICAN was announced as the winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its role in achieving the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In December 2017, Ms Parke was appointed by the UN Human Rights Commissioner to the "Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen", to investigate human rights violations in Yemen.
