Aoife Nolan
Professor of International Human Rights Law, Faculty of Social Sciences
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Biography
Aoife Nolan graduated with a LL.B from Trinity College Dublin in 2000 and completed her PhD at the European University Institute, Florence, in 2005. From 2006-2010, she was a lecturer at the School of Law, Queen's University Belfast, where she served as both Assistant Director of the Human Rights Centre and Director of Postgraduate Programmes in Human Rights. She has also served a member of the Executive Committee of the European Masters Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation. While at QUB, she co-managed a major research project on 'Budget Analysis and The Advancement of Social and Economic Rights in Northern Ireland'. From 2010-2012, she was Senior Lecturer in Law at Durham Law School where she was an active member of its Human Rights Centre.
She has published extensively in the areas of human rights, particularly in relation to economic and social rights and children's rights, as well as on constitutional law. Her work has appeared in journals including Public Law, the Human Rights Law Review and the European Human Rights Law Review. Her monograph Children's Socio-economic Rights, Democracy and the Courts was published by Hart Publishing in September 2011. It won the IALT Kevin Boyle Book Prize and was shortlisted for the Birks Book Prize. She was founding coordinator of the Economic and Social Rights Academic Network UKI (ESRAN-UKI). She is a member of the Editorial Boards of the International Human Rights Law Review and the International Journal of Children's Rights. Her current work focuses on economic and social rights after the financial and economic crises.
She has been invited to present her research at conferences in jurisdictions including South Africa, the United States, Kenya, Nigeria, India, Ireland, Hong Kong, Spain, Argentina, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. She has taught at a range of international institutions, including the Geneva Academy on International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and the Global School on Socio-economic Rights at Harvard University and the University of Groningen. During the course of her research work, she has been a Visiting Foreign Scholar at Fordham University School of Law, New York, a Visiting Research Fellow at Columbia University Law School, New York, Thomas Addis Emmet Fellow in Public Interest Law at the University of Washington, Seattle, and has spent time as a Visiting Student at the University of Cape Town. In early 2013, she was a Visiting Researcher at the Socio-economic Rights and Administrative Justice Project, Faculty of Law, Stellenbosch University. She is currently a Visiting Research Professor at the Centre for Children's Rights, School of Education, Queen's University Belfast.
She has worked with and acted as an expert advisor to a wide range of international and national organisations and bodies working on human rights issues. Amongst other activities, she has served as a Council of Europe Expert on economic and social rights and as Senior Legal Officer with the ESC Rights Litigation Programme of the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions. In 2007-8, she was Human Rights Adviser to the Working Group on Economic and Social Rights, including Relevant Equality Issues of the Northern Ireland Bill of Rights Forum. In early 2008, she provided legal advice to members of the International NGO Coalition for an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. She is a member of the Coordinating Committee of the ESCR-Net Case-Law Database. She has been invited to input into the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, She has provided support to the Office of the Council of Europe Commissioner of Human Rights in relation to budgets and human rights.
Amongst other activities, she has is an advisor to UNICEF UK, the Children's Commissioner for England, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Right to Education Project. She is a member of INTERIGHTS' Legal Research Panel, a member of the Just For Kids Strategic Litigation Group and a trustee of Just Fair: Justice and Fairness through Human Rights.
Teaching Summary
Economic and Social Rights
Regional Human Rights Law
International Human Rights Law
Children's Rights
UK Public Law
Research Summary
For more information on Aoife's research, please see her SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1246420
A selection of podcasts of recent presentations given by Aoife Nolan can be found below:
'Human Rights, Constitutions and Austerity' (presentation given at Amnesty International Ireland Conference A Deficit of Protection - Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Ireland, Dublin (November 2012))
'Children's Rights after the Financial Crisis: A Call to Arms for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child' (keynote speech given at Children's Rights Alliance AGM (May 2012))
'The Human Rights Impacts of the Economic Crisis' (interview given at conference New Horizons on Economic and Social Rights Monitoring, Madrid (March 2012))
'Migrants' Access to Goods and Services in the Context of International Human Rights Law' (presentation given at Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford (February 2012))
'Economic and Social Rights Based Budget Analysis in A Time of Austerity' (presentation given at conference on Fairness, Justice and Human Rights: Realising Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the UK, Law Society, London (October 2011))
Follow Aoife Nolan on Twitter @commentator01
Recent Publications
A. NOLAN, R. O'CONNELL, C. HARVEY, M. DUTSCHKE and E. ROONEY, 2013. Applying an International Human Rights Framework to State Budget Allocations: Rights and Resources Routledge. (In Press.)
A. NOLAN, 2013. Economic and Social Rights, Budgets and the Convention on the Rights of the Child International Journal of Children’s Rights. 21(2), (In Press.)
A. NOLAN, 2013. Holding Non-State Actors to Account for Constitutional Economic and Social Rights Violations: Experiences and Lessons from South Africa and Ireland International Journal of Constitutional Law. 11, (In Press.)