RightsTalk: Andrew Byrnes biography

ANDREW BYRNES is Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales and Chair of the Australian Human Rights Centre. He writes on international law (in particular human rights law), and has written on CEDAW and the human rights of women, bills of rights in domestic law, national human rights institutions, and economic , social and cultural rights, among other topics. He was involved in the drafting of anti-discrimination legislation in Hong Kong, has advised equality commissioners in Australia and Hong Kong, and was closely involved in the drafting of the CEDAW-OP and of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He is a member of the advisory committee of the International Women’s Rights Action Watch (Asia-Pacific), and was a member of the Asian Development Bank’s External Forum on Gender and Development from 2000 to 2009. He has acted as a consultant on gender and other human rights issues to the OHCHR, the UN Division for the Advancement of Women, the ILO, UNESCAP, the Commonwealth Secretariat and other bodies. He was President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law from 2009 to 2013 and has been external legal adviser to the Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights since November 2012.

His publications include Bills of Rights in Australia (2009) (co-authored with Hilary Charlesworth and Gabrielle MacKinnon), contributions to the 2012 OUP Commentary on the CEDAW Convention,  chapters on the CAT and CEDAW Committees in forthcoming volumes with Cambridge UP and OUP, and “The protection and enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights” in Paula Gerber and Melissa Castan (eds), Contemporary Human Rights Issues in Australia (Federation Press, 2012). Further details at www.law.unsw.edu.au/staff/ByrnesA/Publications.asp.