Professor Andrew Byrnes

Andrew Byrnes is Emeritus Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia, an associate of the Australian Human Rights Institute and the Ageing Futures Institute at UNSW and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and of the Australian Academy of Law. He was Professor of International Law from May 2005 until he became an emeritus professor at the end of 2020. Previously, he was Professor of Law at the Australian National University (2001-2005) and prior to that was Associate Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong, where he was Director of the Centre for Comparative and Public Law and Director of the Master of Laws in Human Rights until his departure in 2001. He served as the Chair of the Advisory/Steering Committee of the Australian Human Rights Centre for much of his tenure.

His publications address women’s human rights, the human rights of older persons, gender and human rights, disability rights, national human rights institutions, economic and social rights, peoples’ tribunals and the incorporation of human rights into domestic law. He has served as President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law and
as a Vice-President of the Asian Society of International Law, as also as external legal adviser to the Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights  (2012-2014). He serves on the Human Rights Committee of the Law Council of Australia and as a Board member of the Seniors Rights Service (NSW), has served on the board of the Diplomacy Training Program, the Human Rights Committee of the NSW Bar Association and on the advisory committee of the International Women's Rights Action Watch Asia-Pacific and advised many other organisations.

He was involved in the drafting of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and has acted as pro bono adviser to the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions during the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and in the context
of the United Nations General Assembly Open-ended Working Group on Ageing.

He has served on the Asian Development Bank Expert Forum on Gender and Development and acted as a consultant to the United Nations on human rights, most recently as a consultant in the preparation of two studies by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on older persons and the international human rights framework and for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in a project on the harmonization of national laws in the Asia and Pacific region with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Areas of expertise

International law, Human rights law (particularly gender and disability issues and older persons' human rights and UN treaty body processes, Discrimination law, Domestic implementation of human rights standards

Professional Memberships and Affiliations:

President, Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law (2009-2013)

Editorial positions

Australian Yearbook of International Law, Co-Editor (until mid-2007) Member Editorial Board (from mid-2007)

Australian Journal of Human Rights, Editorial Board member (until 2022)

New Zealand Yearbook of International Law, Advisory Board Member

Research Supervision

Jacoba Brasch (PhD) (The Australian military justice system and civilianisation)

Ricardo Sunga (LLM) (Enforced disappearances and international human rights law)

Lu Wenwen (LLM) (Comparative anti-terrorism law: Australia, Malaysia, Singapore)

Andre Gustavo de Almeida Geraldes (PhD) (Sustainable developmnet and the role of development banks in the Brazilian Amazon)

Lou Schetzer (PhD) (Human rights charters and the hollowed-out State)

Nigel Davidson (SJD, ANU) (International law and the regulation of conflict diamonds)

Joanne Lee (PhD, ANU) (The International CrimInal Court)