Nigel Rodley

Sir Nigel Rodley KBE "is Professor of Law at the University of Essex and Member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

"Nigel Rodley obtained an LLB from the University of Leeds (1963), an LLM from Columbia University (1965), an LLM from New York University (1970) and a PhD from the University of Essex (1993). Subsequent to his graduation from Columbia, he was appointed an Assistant Professor of Law at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. In 1968-69 he served as an Associate Economic Affairs Officer at United Nations Headquarters in New York, working on legal and institutional aspects of international economic co-operation. From 1969 to 1972, he was Visiting Lecturer in Political Science at the Graduate Faculty of the New School of Social Research (New York City) and, from 1970 to 1972, was also a Research Fellow at the New York University Center for International Studies.

"Returning to the United Kingdom in 1973, he became the first Legal Adviser of the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, where he remained until 1990. He also taught Public International Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1973 to 1990. A year's leave (1983) as an Academic Visitor in the Law Department of the LSE permitted him to write The Treatment of Prisoners under International Law (Clarendon Press/UNESCO 1987). In 1990, he was appointed Reader in Law at the University of Essex and Professor of Law in 1994. He was Dean of the School of Law from 1992-1995. He is now Chair of the University's Human Rights Centre.

"In March 1993, he was designated Special Rapporteur on Torture of the UN Commission on Human Rights, serving until November 2001. Since 2001, he has been the elected UK expert member of the Human Rights Committee established under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Vice Chair 2003-2004). He was elected Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists in 2003 and is currently a member of its Executive Committee.

"Before writing Treatment of Prisoners, the second edition of which was published in 1999, he had co-edited International Law in the Western Hemisphere (with C N Ronning, Nijhoff 1974) and co-authored Enhancing Global Human Rights (with J I Dominguez, B Wood and R A Falk; McGraw Hill 1979). Most recently he edited To Loose the Bands of Wickedness - International Intervention in Defence of Human Rights (Brassey's 1992) and co-edited International Responses to Traumatic Stress (with Y Danieli and L Weisaeth; Baywood/UN 1995). His teaching and research interests include Public International Law and Human Rights.

"He was awarded a KBE in the 1998/1999 New Year's Honours List 'for services to human rights and international law', and an honorary LLD from Dalhousie University in May 2000. In 2005, he was awarded the American Society of International Law Goler T Butcher Human Rights Medal for distinguished work in the field of human rights."


 * Advisory Council, International Service for Human Rights
 * Trustee, Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture
 * Working Group, New Tactics in Human Rights