In 1942, he was appointed Challis Professor of Jurisprudence and International Law at the University of Sydney, a position he held until 1972.
Stone's appointment was controversial for several reasons; he was perceived to have a radical jurisprudential stance, some wanted the chair to be held open until the end of the war as it was suggested that there were suitable candidates in active service.
[1] Stone's view was that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are legal under international law, and do not constitute a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 49(6)).
He stated: "Irony would...be pushed to the absurdity of claiming that Article 49(6), designed to prevent repetition of Nazi-type genocidal policies of rendering Nazi metropolitan territories judenrein, has now come to mean that...the West Bank...must be made judenrein and must be so maintained, if necessary by the use of force by the government of Israel against its own inhabitants.
)"[4] Stone has been criticised for his views in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict by Ben Saul, saying: "Many of Stone’s positions on critical international legal issues in the Israel/Palestine conflict stepped outside even generous zones of plausible or reasonable interpretations of the law, even on the law as it then often ambiguously stood, and certainly in hindsight.