Andrew Byrnes

Andrew Byrnes is Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, where he served as Chair of the Australian Human Rights Centre from 2005 to 2017. He teaches and writes in the fields of public international law, human rights, and international criminal/humanitarian law. His work includes publications on women’s human rights, gender and human rights, United Nations human rights treaty bodies, national human rights institutions, economic and social rights, peoples' tribunals and international law, and the incorporation of human rights standards in domestic law. He has previously taught at the University of Sydney, the University of Hong Kong and the Australian National University. With Gabrielle Simm he recently published the edited collection Peoples’ tribunals and international law (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and forthcoming publications includes chapters on the work of the UN Committee on the Discrimination against Women and the UN Committee against Torture, as well as the protection of economic and social rights through the parliamentary process

Andrew served as President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law from 2009 to 2013 and is currently a member of the Executive Council of the Asian Society of International Law. From November 2012 until September 2014 he was external legal adviser to the Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. He serves on the Board of the Diplomacy Training Program, the NSW Bar Association’s Human Rights Committee, and the Advisory Committee of the International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific. He has also served as rapporteur of the International Law Association’s Committee on International Human Rights Law and was a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Alliance on the Rights of Older Persons from 2017 to 2018.

Andrew was involved in the drafting of the CEDAW Optional Protocol, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and is working with the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions in current UN discussions about a possible new convention on the human rights of older persons. He has also worked for the Australian Attorney-General’s Department and the Hong Kong Attorney General’s Chambers and has acted as consultant to a number of international organisations. In 2018 he was awarded the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Human Rights Law Award.