June 2011 NUI Galway Conference to Honour International Human Rights Lawyer

In cooperation with Queen’s University Belfast and Essex University, the Irish Centre for Human Rights at NUI Galway will host an international tripartite video-conference dedicated to the life and work of Professor Kevin Boyle. Professor Boyle was a renowned international human rights lawyer. The conference will take place on Saturday, 11 June, in the Moore Institute, NUI Galway.

The conference is jointly organised by the three universities where Professor Boyle spent his career. A tribute to his work, the conference will focus on key themes in human rights with which he was most engaged.

According to Professor William Schabas, Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at NUI Galway, “the conference will bring together three of the world’s leading human rights institutions and some of world’s leading human rights lawyers who were both friends and colleagues of Professor Kevin Boyle.”

Professor Boyle began his career at Queen’s University Belfast where he was deeply engaged in the civil rights movement. In the late 1970s he joined NUI Galway where he launched the Irish Centre for Human Rights. The last two decades of his life were spent at the University of Essex, where he directed its Human Rights Centre. In addition to his enormous academic contribution, Professor Boyle was active with important international NGOs such as Article 19, of which he was the founding director. He served as a special advisor to Mary Robinson when she was High Commissioner for Human Rights. Professor Boyle appeared frequently before the European Court of Human Rights, winning important cases that dealt with a broad range of issues, including freedom of expression, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and torture.

Keynote speakers at the conference will include Professor William Schabas, Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at NUI Galway and Professor Sir Nigel Rodley, Professor of Law and Chair of the Human Rights Centre, University of Essex.

For further information on the conference contact Nathan Derejko at the NUI Galway Irish Centre for Human Rights on nathanderejko@gmail.com.