Current projects
University of Michigan Law School - Geneva Program
I coordinate the Geneva Program for the University of Michigan Law School, and teach its academic component, a Seminar on International Organizations. The Geneva Program offers an opportunity for Michigan Law School Students to undertake semester-long externships (internships) during the winter term of each year. Students are placed at leading intergovernmental and non-governmental (NGO) institutions. The program is for students with an interest in international affairs, enabling them to explore how international legal regimes intersect with such diverse fields as trade, human rights, intellectual property, labor, environment, telecommunications and health. Students are immersed in the work of the international institutions and closely supervised by their legal staffs. The externships are supplemented by a contemporaneous seminar in Geneva, attendance at conferences of interest, and visits to various international organizations to meet the legal adviser or senior policy personnel.
In 2009 students will be placed at:
Center for International Environmental Law
Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria
International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development
International Commission of Jurists
International Labour Organization
International Organization for Migration-Legal Affairs
International Organization for Migration-Migration Policy
International Service for Human Rights
International Telecommunication Union
TRIAL (Track Impunity Always – Swiss Association Against Impunity)
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva
World Health Organization
Geneva Program students can access the seminar materials and program calendar via my UM website.
Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (OP-ICESCR)
The topic of my doctorate project is the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Its Genesis, Interpretation, and the International Impact and Potential Effects on the Domestic Implementation and Enforcement of Socio-Economic Rights.
The OP-ICESCR is an instrument that primarily establishes a complaints procedure for victims of violations of economic, social and cultural rights. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) is the last but one of the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies to adopt a communications/petitions mechanism as part of their functions in reviewing the domestic implementation of the core international human rights treaties.
The practical goal of this project is to produce a comprehensive analysis of the OP-ICESCR which can be used by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, legal practitioners and academics, and others interested in the genesis, interpretation and potential future impact of the latest international human rights instrument. The thesis should contribute to clarifying how the OP-ICESCR came about, how it could and should be interpreted, and how the jurisprudence of other Treaty Bodies and regional and other mechanisms can be of use in the task of interpretation. It will be a historically significant collection of the travaux préparatoires, critically analysed.
Some of my work on the OP-ICESCR has been informed by my previous involvement in the Steering Committee of the NGO Coalition for an OP-ICESCR.
Realizing the Right to Health
Professor Andrew Clapham (Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Director of the Geneva Academy International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights) and Mrs Mary Robinson (founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, former President of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, are editing a book entitled Realizing the Right to Health. Scott Jerbi (Realizing Rights) and I are assisting as co-editors. The book is the third volume of the Swiss Human Rights Book series, initiated and supported by the Political Division IV of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and prepared by the University of Zurich and the Geneva Academy International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. The Swiss Human Rights Book series is dedicated to the realization of human rights in concrete situations throughout the world, and this volume, which will particularly address aspects of the right to health, follows earlier volumes on Realizing the Right to Property and Realizing Children’s Rights.
Realizing the right to health requires a strong focus on strengthening health care systems and transforming health systems for women. Taking a human rights approach to health means understanding the underlying social determinants of this right, as well as how to ensure the right to health is realized in times of emergency and armed conflict, and for all groups in society, including migrants and refugees, indigenous people, prisoners and detainees, and others. In this third volume of the Swiss Human Rights Book series, leading international experts in human rights and health address issues such as access to essential medicines and HIV/AIDS, trade and health, SARS and malaria, and human rights approaches to other key health challenges. They address the role of governments, non-state actors and healthcare practitioners, the responses of multinational institutions, and overview some of the strategies for realizing the right to health.
Research Unit on the Right to Food
The Research Unit on the Right to Food is based in Geneva, Switzerland and was created in 2001. It provides research support to Jean Ziegler, in collaboration with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Research Unit helped to prepare the former Special Rapporteur's reports to the UN Commission on Human Rights and to the UN General Assembly and assisted in country missions to examine the right to food around the world. The Research Unit now works with Jean Ziegler in his capacity as Member of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, where he has been appointed as an expert on economic, social and cultural rights. The Research Unit also works to disseminate information about the right to food and to develop networks of organisations working on the right to food and reporting violations of the right to food. It also organised a training course for professionals and taught a university course about ESC rights to graduate students.
Views from the Australian disaspora
I have just begun working on a new project - compiling a book entitled Standing on the Outside Looking In: Views from the Disaspora on the Future of Australia. This book will be an edited collection of contributions to be written by leading Australians living overseas, addressing a variety of public-policy and current affairs topics that have particular relevance for the future of Australia (the economy, environment, sport, arts, indigenous issues, human rights etc). It will draw upon the expertise and experience of current and future world leaders in a number of fields, and detail their innovative and thought-provoking ideas on the challenges and prospects shaping the future direction of our country. It will be an opportunity for them to share their reflections, and to bring home and apply the lessons they've learnt as part of the Australian diaspora. The book will offer a solution to the so-called 'brain drain' problem - enabling influential expatriate Australians to contribute to the public debate on important issues in Australia, and in particular, to the process of building solutions for a better Australia, without requiring them to come 'home' to do so. The aim of the book is to make a timely contribution to contemporary public affairs, highlighting a number of unique perspectives from the viewpoint of the 'interested observer', with the intention of influencing policy-making and public opinion.
Do you know someone who is an Australian citizen living overseas, who is an expert in their field and with a lot of interesting ideas about the future of their particular issue and what lessons Australia needs to learn or could benefit from? If so, perhaps they would be perfect as a contributor for this book! I'd love to hear from you if you have any ideas about contributors and/topics that simply must be addressed. Please email or call to discuss your ideas.
(In the future I plan to undertake a similar project on the future of New Zealand, working with the many amazing Kiwis living and working overseas. I'll post more information here as I progress with that.)
Selected previous projects
Mega-events, Olympic Games, and housing rights
During 2006-7 I worked with the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) on a project studying seven past and future Olympic host cities (Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Athens, Beijing and London) and the impact the Games have had on the housing rights of their residents. On 5 June 2007 the Fair Play for Housing Rights: Mega-Events, Olympic Games and Housing Rights report was released. The research contained in this report shows that the Olympic Games have displaced more than two million people in the last 20 years, disproportionately affecting the homeless, the poor, and minorities such as Roma and African-Americans.
As a result of this study, we developed a set of guidelines for all stakeholders in future host cities to follow in order to minimise the negative impacts arising from mega-events. These Multi-Stakeholder Guidelines on Mega-Events and the Protection and Promotion of Housing Rights also seek to highlight opportunities for promoting positive housing legacies to be enjoyed long after the event has been staged.
The report also addresses the housing impacts of other mega-events such as the FIFA World Cup, World Expos, IMF/World Bank Conferences and even beauty pageants such as the Miss World and Miss Universe contests. It demonstrates that mega-events can both directly and indirectly cause a number of housing rights violations and other negative effects. These include: forced eviction; displacement; rising housing costs (leading to unaffordability of housing); reductions in the provision of social, public, and low-cost housing; discrimination against minorities and the poor; criminalisation of homelessness; expropriation of private property; and lack of transparency and exclusion of local residents from participation in decision-making.
The Mega-Events, Olympic Games and Housing Rights project, was supported by the Geneva International Academic Network (RUIG/GIAN), and was undertaken in partnership with UN-HABITAT, the Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General on Sport for Development and Peace, the Graduate Institute of International Studies, the Geneva School of Architecture, the University of Toronto, the New York University Law School and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
On 14-15 June 2007, following the release of the report and Guidelines, COHRE convened a 2-day exert meeting on Mega-Events and Housing Rights. Presentations from that meeting, including my summary of the project's findings, are available here.
