Guests
From time to time guest contributors are invited to write for Human Rights in Ireland. Here you can find some information on our guest contributors as well as a link to their guest post. We welcome guest posts on any topic of interest to the Irish human rights community from scholars and activists of all backgrounds. To suggest a guest post, please email fiona.delondras[at]ucd.ie or maireadenright[at]gmail.com.
Christine Bell is currently Director of the Transitional Justice Institute, and Professor of Public International Law at University of Ulster (based at Magee Campus). She read law at Selwyn College, Cambridge, (1988) and gained an LL.M in Law from Harvard Law School (1990), supported by a Harkness Fellowship. In 1990 she qualified as a Barrister at law. She subsequently qualified as an Attorney-at-law in New York, practicing for a period at Debevoise & Plimpton, NY. From 1997-9 she was Director of the Centre for International and Comparative Human Rights Law, Queen’s University of Belfast. She has been active in non-governmental organizations, and was chairperson of Belfast-based Human Rights organization, the Committee on the Administration of Justice from 1995-7, and a founder member of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission established under the terms of the Belfast Agreement. In 1999 she was a member of the European Commission’s Committee of Experts on Fundamental Rights. In 2007 Christine won the American Society of International Law’s Francis Deake Prize for her article on “Peace Agreements: Their Nature and Legal Status” 100(2) American Journal of International Law . The prize is awarded annually for the leading article by a younger author in the AJIL She has authored two books: On the Law of Peace: Peace Agreements and the Lex Pacificatoria (Oxford University Press 2008) and Peace Agreements and Human Rights (Oxford University Press 2000), and a report published by the International Council on Human Rights Policy entitled Negotiating Justice? Human Rights and Peace Agreements (2006). Christine was awarded the Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship for “established academics with an international reputation” at the European University Institute Law department, Florence, Italy, from January to June 2007. She has also taken part in various peace negotiations discussions, giving constitutional law and human rights law advice, and also in training for diplomats, mediators and lawyers. A comprehensive list of Christine’s publications can be found here.
Christine’s post on Bloody Sunday and Human Rights in Northern Ireland
Noeline Blackwell is a solicitor and the Director General of the Free Legal Advice Centres. She is the former Chairperson of both the International Human Rights Trust and the Irish Section of Amnesty International.
Noeline’s post in our HRinI Blog Symposium on Carmody v Minister for Justice (2009)
Saoirse Brady is Policy and Campaigns Officer with the Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC). She is the main author of the report One Size Doesn’t Fit All: A legal analysis of the direct provision and dispersal system in Ireland, 10 years on. She is a graduate of UCD and previously worked with Front Line and the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.
Saoirse’s post on FLAC’s One Size Doesn’t Fit All report
Nicola Carr is a Lecturer in Social Work at Queen’s University Belfast. Her main research areas are the interface of welfare and justice systems, youth transitions and probation studies. She is a Board Member of the Irish Association of Young People in Care and has written about various aspects of the Irish care system including secure care and leaving care provisions and representation for young people in care.
Siobhán Cummiskey is the managing solicitor of the Irish Traveller Movement Independent Law Centre, which works to promote the rights of Travellers through strategic litigation, legal education and policy work. She is a member of the Human Rights Committee of the Law Society of Ireland and a course contributor to their Certificate in Human Rights Law. Siobhán is assistant editor of the forthcoming Irish Human Rights Law Review.
Siobhan’s Post on Travellers as an Ethnic Minority
Paul Daly is a visiting researcher at the Harvard Law School and is pursuing a PhD at the University of Cambridge, where he has also taught administrative and constitutional law. Recently, he was the research assistant to Dr Gerard Hogan SC and Professor David Gwynn Morgan on the forthcoming fourth edition of Administrative Law in Ireland. Mr Daly has been awarded law degrees by University College Cork, where he also taught constitutional law, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
University of Cambridge Profile ¦ Paul’s post in our HRinI Blog Symposium on Carmody v Minister for Justice (2009)
Dr Fergal Davis BCL (NUI) MA (Leeds) PhD (Dublin University) is a lecturer in law at Lancaster University. He is the author of The history and development of the Special Criminal Court, 1922-2005 (Dublin, Four Courts press, 2007) and has presented and published on trial by jury in Australia, Ireland and the UK. In 2000 he was a Government of Ireland Scholar having previously received a British Council, Foreign & Commonwealth Office Chevening Scholarship.
Lancaster University Profile ¦ Fergal’s Post on Non-Jury Trials
Dr. Elaine Dewhurst is a First Class Honours BCL graduate from University College Cork who successfully defended her PhD thesis in March 2009 on “The Obstacles Faced by Migrant Workers to Achieving Equality with Irish Nationals in Employment in Ireland”. In 2004, she was awarded the EJ Phelan Fellowship in International Law by the National University of Ireland. From 2006 – 2007, she worked in the Law School, Law Society of Ireland as a Course Executive.
From 2007- 2009 she worked in the position of Parliamentary and Law Reform Executive in the Law Society of Ireland. She is currently a lecturer in Dublin City University.
DCU Profile – Immigration Blog Carnival Post–Budget 2010 Blog Carnival Post
Deirdre Duffy is a PhD student in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham. Her research focuses on the criminalisation of youth policy under the Third Way in Britain. Before commencing her PhD, Deirdre worked as a Research Associate at the International Centre for Public and Social Policy (UoN) and the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (Sheffield Hallam University). She has played a key role in policy evaluations of communty services and support structures for vulnerable groups for the UK Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the European Commission. She also works with a number of voluntary and community sector groups in Nottingham as part of action research and widening participation initiatives.
University of Nottingham Profile
Deirdre’s Post on Gordan Brown and Moral Contradictions – Immigration Blog Carnival– Budget 2010 Blog Carnival Post
Suzanne Egan has been a lecturer in International and European Human Rights Law in UCD School of Law since 1992. She is a qualified barrister and holds a Master of Laws Degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. Prior to lecturing at UCD, she was the Legal Supervisor of an independent research centre on refugee law and policy in Canada (1989-1991) and a Research Assistant at the Law Reform Commission in Ireland (1991-1992). She is a commissioner of the Irish Human Rights Commission.
Eilonoir Flynn is currently completing her PhD at University College Cork on the subject of “Advocacy Services for People with Disabilities – A Comparative Study of Disability Rights Enforcement in Ireland and Victoria.” She is also a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy, NUI Galway, on a project entitled:
“Advancing the National Disabiltiy Strategy: Building on Comparative and International Innovation”; however, her contributions to the blog are made in a personal capacity.
NUIG Profile – Budget 2010 Blog Carnival Post
Diarmuid Griffin is a Lecturer in Law at NUI Galway specialising in criminal law and criminal justice. He is currently working on a PhD at University College Dublin on the decision-making process of the Irish system of the early and temporary release of offenders. In 2007 Diarmuid was appointed as a legal expert to FRALEX, a group which advises the EU Fundamental Rights Agency based in Vienna. He is a member of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission Consultative Group and is the national expert for the research project, “Restorative Justice and Crime Prevention” coordinated by the European Forum for Restorative Justice and the Psychoanalytic Institute for Social Research, Rome. He is the Irish legal expert for the Transparency International Progress Report on the Enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention and is an external examiner at DIT.
NUIG Profile Guest Post on Restorative Justice
Professor Colin Harvey is Professor of Human Rights Law and the Head of the Law School at Queen’s University Belfast. Professor Harvey was appointed by the Minister for Employment and Learning (NI) to the Northern Ireland Higher Education Council from 2002-2006. He was appointed by the Secretary of State (NI) to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission in June 2005 and took up his position as a part-time Commissioner from 1 September 2005, he was re-appointed for a further three years in September 2008.
QUB Profile
Guest Post on the Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland
Andrew Hayward is a Lecturer in Family Law at Durham Law School specialising in the legal regulation of adult relationships, particularly marriage, civil partnerships and cohabitation. He is currently completing his PhD on the interface between traditional equitable principles and cohabitation reform within the family home arena.
Durham Profile Guest Blog on Cohabitation in England and Wales: Learning from Ireland?
Tom Hickey is a PhD candidate at the Law school, NUI Galway, under the supervision of Prof. Gerry Quinn. He attended Princeton University on a Visiting Student Research Collaborative Scheme in 2009, under the supervision of Prof. Philip Pettit, at the University Center for Human Values.
NUIG Profile Guest Post on Religious Patronage of Irish Primary Schools
Danielle Kennan is a Researcher with the Child and Family Research Centre (CFRC) in NUI, Galway. In October 2008 the CFRC was awarded a UNESCO Chair in Children, Youth and Civic Engagement. Danielle joined the CFRC in March 2009 to assist with the set up and development of the Chair and to undertake research and policy work in the field. She previously worked at the Irish Human Rights Commission. Danielle contributes to this blog in her personal capacity.
NUI Galway Profile – Budget 2010 Blog Carnival Post
Jo Kenny is Legal Officer at the Public Interest Law Alliance (PILA), a project of the Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC). Jo qualified as a barrister in England. She worked as a legal advisor to the Department for Work and Pensions for 3 years, where she advised on domestic and international litigation and the ECHR aspects of policy proposals and legislation. On returning to Dublin Jo worked as an associate at Arthur Cox for 2 years and co-authored the pensions chapter in “Employment Law” (Tottels). She has volunteered with FLAC as a law centre advisor and researcher. Prior to her appointment to PILA, Jo undertook a professional placement at the Irish Human Rights Commission. Jo has an LLM in International Law and has worked as a researcher on textbooks on international law and human rights. Jo has also volunteered as a Citizens’ Advice Bureau advisor.
Dr Ursula Kilkelly is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University College Cork where she is also co-director of the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights. She has researched and published in children’s rights for 15 years and is author, notably, of the Child and the ECHR (1999), Youth Justice in Ireland (2006) and Children’s Rights in Ireland: Law, Policy and Practice (2008).
Fergal Landy joined the Child and Family Research Centre in September 2009 as Researcher – Service Development and Design. Fergal previously worked in practice with the HSE as a Community Development Worker with responsibility for the development of family support services in North Tipperary, as a Child Protection Social Worker in Galway and as a Social Worker with out of home adolescents as part of the Crisis Intervention Service in Dublin. Fergal lectures on the Higher Diploma/Masters Degree in Family Support Studies (NUI Galway). Fergal contributes to this blog in his personal capacity.
NUI Galway Profile–Budget 2010 Blog Carnival Post– Children’s Rights Post
Dr Louise Mallinder became a lecturer in human rights and international law at the Transitional Justice Institute in November 2009 and has been appointed TJI’s ‘Dealing with the Past’ research coordinator. She received a BA (2001), LLM in Human Rights Law (2003) and a PhD (2006) from Queen’s University Belfast. She has published her doctoral thesis as Amnesty, Human Rights and Political Transitions: Bridging the Peace and Justice Divide (Hart Publishing, 2008) and this monograph was awarded the 2009 Hart SLSA Early Career Award and was jointly awarded the 2009 British Society of Criminology Book Prize
Chelsea Marshall is a PhD candidate in the School of Law at Queen’s University working with the Childhood, Transition and Social Justice Initiative. Her research focuses on transitional justice priorities and the structural legacies of conflict that impact upon the inclusion of young women in ‘post’-conflict societies.
Agnieszka Martynowicz is responsible for implementing the Research and Policy Programme and developing IPRT links with academic and research bodies in the field of penal reform. Until March 2009 Agnieszka was Assistant Director with the Institute for Conflict Research in Belfast where she led on the Institute’s work on migration and asylum. Previously, she worked in the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) as Research Worker, specializing in policing and criminal justice issues, and at Queen’s University Belfast as researcher on the Equality and Social Inclusion in Ireland Project. Before moving to Ireland, she worked in a number of voluntary groups in Poland, providing legal advice and training to organisations such as the Prison Service and Social Services. She is a co-author of a number of immigration-related reports.
Pádraig McAuliffe lectures at the University of Dundee and is a graduate of University College Cork. In 2009, he was awarded his doctorate for his research on the Special Panels for Serious Crimes in East Timor. He held a visiting research fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2007. From 2008 to 2009, Pádraig worked as a researcher in the Legal Division of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs. He is a contributor to the Oxford Reports on International Criminal Law.
Rossa McMahon is a solicitor in Patrick G. McMahon Solicitors, Newcastle West Co. Limerick and practises primarily in civil and criminal litigation. He qualified as a solicitor with Mason Hayes+Curran and worked in the corporate department of A&L Goodbody until recently. He is co-author of the data protection and IT contracts sections of the Law Society of Ireland Professional Practice Guide on Technology and IP Law (Tottel Publishing, 2008) and has published a number of articles in the Commercial Law Practitioner, Tottel’s Communications Law and the journal of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.
Rossa’s post on Gangland Law: Crime Fighting Tool or Gimmick?
Tanya ni Mhuirthile‘s research interests include identity rights, privacy, gender and the law, feminist jurisprudence and medical law. Tanya is currently completing her doctoral thesis in UCC entitled Intersex Individuals and the Law: A Case for Reform.
Darren O’Donovan completed his PhD, ‘The Travelling Community, Cultural Rights and Accommodation under International Human Rights Law’ at the UCC law faculty in 2009. In 2008, he was commissioned by the Irish Human Rights Commission to complete a research report on the international human rights protections of Travellers’ cultural identity, which led to the publication of a joint Pavee Point/Irish Human Rights Commission Report: The Cultural Rights of Travellers’ (2008). Darren is currently working as a researcher on an IRCHSS funded project Gender, Religious Diversity and Multiculturalism and is working on a number of articles on minority rights and the rights of the Travelling Commmunity.
Roderic O’Gorman is a graduate of Trinity College and the London School of Economics. He lectures in European Union Law and Irish Constitutional Law in Griffith College Dublin. He is currently undertaking a PhD thesis looking at Social Rights and European Union Citizenship.
Roderic’s post on Workers’ Rights and the Lisbon Treaty
Dr Conor O’Mahony lectures in constitutional law at the Faculty of Law in University College Cork. His book, Educational Rights in Irish Law, was published by Thomson Round Hall in 2006. He has published numerous articles on educational rights and children’s rights in Irish and international journals and spoken on these topics at conferences such as the World Congress on Children’s Rights in 2005 (South Africa) and 2009 (Canada).
Fergus Ryan, LLB (Dub.), Ph.D. (Dub.) is a lecturer in law at the Dublin Institute of Technology. From 2003-2009 he served as Head of the Department of Law at DIT. He lectured in Family Law at the School of Law, Trinity College, Dublin from 2002-2005. Fergus has written and spoken widely in the areas of constitutional law and family law and specifically on the legal position of non-traditional families. In particular, Fergus is the co-author with Judy Walsh of The Rights of De Facto Couples (2006) and author of Civil Partnership: Your Questions Answered (2009), published by GLEN. A former President of the Irish Association of Law Teachers, Fergus appears regularly on national radio, and has completed commissioned work for the Irish Human Rights Commission, the Northern Ireland Law Reform Advisory Committee and the Equality Authority.
Jillian van Turnhout is the Chief Executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance. Jillian is the Vice-Chairperson of European Movement Ireland, a member of the European Economic and Social Committee, on the Management Committee of the National Economic and Social Forum and a member of the National Youth Work Advisory Committee.
Jillian’s post on Budget 2010 and the Rights of the Child
Illan Rua Wall graduated with distinction from University College Cork (BCL) and the National University of Ireland, Galway (LLM in International Human Rights Law). He holds a PHD from Birkbeck College, University of London on Legal Theory and Human Rights. He is a lecturer at Oxford Brookes and author of Human Rights and Constitutent Power: Without Model or Warranty, forthcoming with Routledge this summer.
Oxford Brookes Profile; Illan’s post on the right to housing
Kieran Walsh is a lecturer at Griffith College Cork and University College Cork. He is currently pursing a PhD in UCC examining the role of risk analysis and preventative measures in child protection under the supervision of Dr. Ursula Kilkelly and Professor Maeve McDonagh. Kieran has acted as advisor to the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection and Barnardos.
UCC Profile ¦Post on the Murphy Commission Report
Rachael Walsh is a Ph.D. candidate and Ussher Fellow at Trinity College, Dublin, researching the constitutional protection of private property in Ireland and its interaction with land-use regulation under the supervision of Dr. Oran Doyle. She graduated with a Gold Medal in Law from Trinity College in 2007 and as a Fulbright Scholar, received an LL.M. degree from Harvard University in 2008.
TCD Profile | Post on Compulsory Acqusition for Private Development
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Oh, just a small point though, it seems I am soemhwhat ‘connected’ to this blog more than I thought…it was launched when I joined Queens in August! Very nice coincidence!