Staff Profiles

Siobhán Mullally is the Established Professor of Human Rights Law and Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at University of Galway. In 2020, she was appointed by UN Human Rights Council as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children, reporting both to the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly. She is an Honorary Professor at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queens University Belfast. 

From 2017-19, Professor Mullally was the President of the Council of Europe treaty monitoring  body, the Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking (GRETA), and previously served as 1st Vice-President (2015-17 and Member (2013-19). She was a Commissioner with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (2014-19) and also a member of the Joint Treaty body of the Northern Irish Human Rights Commission and the Irish Human Rights Commission (created by the Good Friday Agreement). She is a member of the National Group of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague, and was the founding Joint Editor-in-Chief of the Irish Yearbook of International Law (2006-20), published by Hart Bloomsbury, Oxford. 

She is a member of the Department of Foreign Affairs Standing Committee on Human Rights and of the Expert Advisory Panel on Ireland's membership of the UN Security Council. In 2019, she was appointed to the Strategic Human Rights Advisory Committee of An Garda Síochána (Police service). She previously served as a member of the Department of Justice and Equality Research Advisory Group.

Siobhán was the Principal Investigator of the Irish Research Council project on Human Trafficking, Forced Migration and Gender Equality in Uganda, a collaborative research program with the Refugee Law Project, Makerere University. She was PI and the Senior Legal Expert for Ireland on FRANET, the EU Fundamental Rights Agency multidisciplinary research network. She has supervised 25 PhD students to completion, many of whom were the recipients of prestigious externally funded scholarships. She has supervised several post-doctoral fellows, and many Masters students (both postgraduate taught and postgraduate research). Her PhD supervisees now hold senior positions in academia, international courts and organisations and in public policy.

Siobhán has published widely in the fields of migration, rights of migrant workers, refugee protection, gender, women’s rights, and human trafficking. Her publications have appeared in leading law journals including Modern Law Review, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Human Rights Quarterly, American Journal of Comparative Law, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, European Public Law, Legal Studies, Public Law, International Journal of Law in Context, Asian Yearbook of International Law. Her books include Gender, Culture and Human Rights: Reclaiming Universalism and Care, Migration and Human Rights: Law and Practice. 

Prior to her appointment at NUI Galway, she held a Chair (Full Professorship) in Law at University College Cork, where she was also Vice-Head of the College of Business and Law, Chair of the University Equality Committee, and founding Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights. She held the role of Vice-Chair of the Institutional Self Assessment team (SAT) for the first successful Athena Swan Bronze award for the University. She has held lecturing positions in the UK and Pakistan, and has held visiting positions at several Universities including Sciences Po, Paris, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Emory, Temple, Sydney, University of York, Toronto, Peshawar and National Law School of India Bangalore and Symbiosis Law School India.

In 2009-10, Professor Mullally was a Fulbright Scholar and Senior Fellow in Residence at the Center for Gender, Sexuality and Law at Columbia University, School of Law. In 2011-12, she was awarded the prestigious Senior Fernand Braudel Fellowship at the European University Institute, Florence. 

Professor Mullally has worked as an adviser and consultant on human rights, migration and asylum law, gender and justice sector reform for UN bodies (including UNIFEM, UNDP, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Council of Europe) and international organisations in many parts of the world, including in Ethiopia, Timor-Leste, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kosovo.  In 2009, she was appointed by the International Bar Association to an Inquiry team, examining the Independence of the Judiciary in Pakistan, and in 2019, her report on the Rights of Migrant Children was published by the IBA and presented at its World Congress in Seoul.  

Professor Mullally was the Director of a British Council program on Women and Human Rights Law with the University of Peshawar, Pakistan, from 1993-96, and from 2003-6. She led the development of the first taught LLM programme in Pakistan, launched at the University of Peshawar in 1992.  

Siobhán served as Chairperson of the Irish Refugee Council from 2006-8. She was one of the founding Directors in 2000 and served on the Board of NASC, the Migrant and Refugee Rights Centre from 2010-2013. She is the Irish Member of the Odysseus European network of experts on Asylum and Migration Law. Siobhán was previously the Irish member of the EU Network of Experts on Free Movement of Persons.  She is a Global Faculty Affiliate of the Vulnerability and the Human Condition initiative at Emory University, School of Law, USA.

Siobhán is a graduate of the European University Institute, Florence (PhD), the London School of Economics (LLM) and University College Cork (BCL).    She holds a Certificate in Teaching International Human Rights Law from the Institute de Droits de l'Homme, Strasbourg.  


Selected representative roles

• United Nations Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children 
• President of the Council of Europe Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (2017-2019), First Vice President (2015-2017), elected Member (2013-2019)
• Commissioner, Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, (appointed by the President of Ireland) (2014-2019) and Member of the Joint Committee of the Northern Irish Human Rights Commission and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (established by the Good Friday Agreement).
• Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague
• Member of the High Council, European University Institute
• Member of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Standing Committee on Human Rights