Human Rights Centre

Malcolm N. Shaw KC was the Founder and First Director of the Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, 1983. He is the author of a widely-cited textbook on international law, with its ninth edition in 2021. He is a practising barrister at Essex Court Chambers and Senior Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at Cambridge University. He is Emeritus Sir Robert Jennings Professor of International Law at Leicester University. One of the world's leading international lawyers, he is an Associé of the Institut de Droit International, former Trustee of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and a founding member of Curatorium of the Xiamen Academy of International Law, China. 

Professor Kevin Boyle was the longest serving director of the Human Rights Centre. He led the Centre from 1990 to 2003 and again in 2006 to 2007. Throughout his time at Essex, Kevin played a pivotal role in developing the Centre into the multidisciplinary powerhouse it is today. At the same time, as a practising barrister (he was called to the bars of Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic and England and Wales, and from 1992 was associated with Doughty Street Chambers in London), Kevin brought many human rights cases before the European commission and court of human rights. For his work with Professor Françoise Hampson on cases concerning the Turkish Kurds, they were jointly named Human Rights Lawyer of the Year in 1998 by Liberty. Their litigation on the actions of the security forces in Turkey helped secure truth and justice for affected families and communities. Kevin also served as the senior advisor to Mary Robinson, then UN high commissioner for human rights in 2001-2002 and was the chair of Minority Rights Group International. He was very active in the Northern Ireland civil rights movement, and he founded the Irish Centre for Human Rights in Galway in 1980. He also served as the founding director of Article 19, the international non-governmental organisation promoting freedom of expression and of the press. 

Read Professor Kevin Boyles Obituary.

Professor Françoise Hampson joined the University of Essex in 1983 to develop teaching and research on the international law of armed conflict. She taught International Law of Armed Conflict and International Human Rights Law on the LLM and MA programmes, and supervised generations of doctoral researchers. She represented hundreds of applicants and submitted third-party interventions to the European Court of Human Rights, notably in cases arising from armed conflict. For her work with Professor Kevin Boyle on cases concerning the Turkish Kurds, they were jointly named Human Rights Lawyer of the Year in 1998 by Liberty. From 1998 to 2007, she served as the UK-nominated independent expert on the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, and from 2017 to 2021, she was a member of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Burundi. 

Read the tributes to Professor Françoise Hampson.

Professor Sir Nigel Rodley KBE came to Essex in 1990. He became a Professor of Law in 1994 and was Dean of Law from 1992 to 1995. He has also served as the Chair of the Human Rights Centre. Before joining Essex, he was Legal Adviser at Amnesty International from 1973 onwards - the founding Head of Legal and Intergovernmental Organisations Office.  From 1993 to 2001 he served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture. From 2001 to 2016 he was a Member of the UN Human Rights Committee, serving as its Chairperson from 2013 to 2014. 

In 1998 he was knighted for services to human rights and international law. Other honours included an honorary LLD from Dalhousie University. He was also a joint recipient of the American Society of International Law’s 2005 Goler T Butcher Medal for distinguished work in human rights. In 2008 he was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians. He was also President of the International Commission of Jurists at the time of his death in 2017.

Read the tributes to Professor Sir Nigel Rodley.