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Professor David Kinley

Profile

Degrees
BA CNAA; MA Sheff; PhD Camb

Brief Biographical Detail

Professor David Kinley holds the inaugural Chair in Human Rights Law at University of Sydney. His has previously held positions at Cambridge University, The Australian National University, the University of New South Wales, Washington College of Law, American University, and most recently was the founding Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University (2000-2005). He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in 2004, based in Washington DC, and Herbert Smith Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge during the first half of 2008. He has written and edited eight books and more than 60 articles, book chapters, reports and papers.

He has also worked for 15 years as a consultant and adviser on international and domestic human rights law in Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Iraq, Nepal, Laos, China, and Myanmar/Burma, and for a number of organisations including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, AusAID, and the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions, and a number of transnational corporations, and NGOs. He has also previously worked for three years with the Australian Law Reform Commission and two years with the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

He has three books coming out in 2009 – first, an edited collection entitled Corporations and Human Rights, which was published in February by Ashgate in its International Library of Essays series; second, a monograph entitled Civilising the Globalisation: Human Rights and the Global Economy, being published by Cambridge University Press in June; and thirdly, a jointly edited collection of essays entitled Interdisciplinary Perspectives of the WTO, being published by Edward Elgar late in the year.

He was born and brought up in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the 1960s and 70s, studied in England in the 1980s at the Universities of Sheffield and Cambridge, and after obtaining his doctorate from the latter in 1990 he moved to Australia.

Most recent publications

Books | Monograph | Internet publication | Chapters in books | Selected recent articles | Shorter articles and reviews | Selected speeches, papers and conference presentations

Books

  • Civilising Globalisation: Human Rights and the Global Economy, Cambridge University Press (forthcoming 2009)
  • Interdisciplinary Perspectives of the WTO (ed., with S Joseph and J Waincymer), Edward Elgar, (forthcoming, 2009).
  • Human Rights and Corporations, Ashgate (2009)
  • Textbook on International Human Rights Law,(with C Sidoti and Cao Đức Thái (eds)), National Academy Publishing Press (in Vietnamese) (2006)
  • Commercial Law and Human Rights (ed with S Bottomley), Dartmouth, Aldershot (341 pp + xiv) 2002
  • Human Rights in Australian Law: Principles, Practice and Potential (ed); Federation Press, Sydney (366 pp + xxxiii) 1998
  • Principles of European Community Law, (with S Bronitt & F Burns); Law Book Co., Sydney (587 pp + lxi) 1995
  • The European Convention on Human Rights: Compliance without Incorporation, (second reprint); Dartmouth Publishing Co., Aldershot (202 pp + ix) 1993

Monograph

Internet publication

  • Human Rights Explained: A Guide to Human Rights in Australia in a Global Context, published by Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in association with Commonwealth Attorney-General's Dept. and the Law Foundation of NSW (124 pp) 1998

Chapters in books

  • “Viet Nam, Human Rights and Trade: Implications of Vietnam’s Accession to the WTO” (with Hai Nguyen & Odette Murray), in Joseph, Kinley & Waincymer (eds) Interdisciplinary Perspectives of the WTO (forthcoming, 2009).
  • “Human Rights, Corporations and the Global Economy” (with Justine Nolan), in Guido Palazzo & Andreas Scherer (eds) Handbook on Corporate Citizenship Edward Elgar: UK (2008) 343-373
  • “'The Norms are Dead. Long Live the Norms!' The Politics Behind the UN Human Rights Norms for Corporations” (Nolan, J & Zerial, N) in D McBarnet, A Voiculescu & T Campbell (eds), The New Corporate Accountability: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Law, Cambridge University Press: United Kingdom (2007) 459-475
  • "Human Rights and the World Bank: Practice, Politics and Law", in A Palacio, C Sage & M Woolcock (eds), The World Bank Legal Review: Law, Equity, and Development, Martinus Nijhoff: The Netherlands (2006) 353-383
  • "Human Rights and the World Bank: Practice, Politics and Law", in C. Raj Kumar & DK Srivastava (eds) Human Rights and Development: Challenges for Governance Reform in Asia, LexisNexis, Butterworths: Sydney (2006)
  • "Human Rights and the Global Economy" (with Cao Đức Thái), in D Kinley, C Sidoti & Cao Đức Thái (Eds), Textbook on International Human Rights Law, The Publishing House of Political Theory: Vietnam (2006) 385-410
  • "The Conceptual Origins and Evolution of Human Rights" (with Cao Đức Thái) in D Kinley, C Sidoti & Cao Đức Thái (Eds), Textbook on International Human Rights Law, The Publishing House of Political Theory: Vietnam (2006) 29-66
  • "Corporate Social Responsibility and International Human Rights Law" in R Mullerat (ed) Corporate Social Responsibility, The Corporate Governance of the 21st Century (Kluwer) 2005
  • "The Globalization of Human Rights Laws" in Spencer Zifcak (ed) Globalisation and the Rule of Law (Routledge, London) 2005
  • "The Institutional Mediation of Human Rights in Australia" (with Penny Martin), chapter 10 in P. Boreham, G. Stokes and R. Hall (eds) The Politics of Australian Society; 2nd edn (Pearson, Sydney) 2004
  • "Human Rights, Trade and Multinational Corporations" with Adam McBeth, in R Sullivan (ed) Business and Human Rights: Dilemmas and Solutions (Greenleaf, London) 2003
  • "International Human Rights as Legally Binding or merely Relevant", chapter in S Bottomley & D Kinley (eds) Commercial Law and Human Rights, (Ashgate, Aldershot) 2002
  • "Legal Rights and State Responsibilities under the ECHR", chapter in L Hancock & C O'Brien (Eds) Re-writing Rights in Europe, (Dartmouth, Aldershot) 2000

Selected recent articles

Shorter articles and reviews

  • Re-Regulating Global Finance with the Poor in Mind: A Policy Paper (October 2008);
  • "Globalisation and The Law" (2003) 15(4) Legal Date 1-3 2003
  • "The Human Rights Responsibilities of Multinational Corporations: A Legal Study", with S Joseph and A McBeth, (2003) 2 New Academy Review 92 2003
  • "After Johannesburg: Can Human Rights be Privatised Too?", with Adam McBeth, (2002) 27 Alternative Law Journal 292 2002
  • Review of Human Rights in International and Australian Law, by RPiotrowicz & S Kaye; in Australian Yearbook of International Law 2001

Selected speeches, papers and conference presentations

  • “Corporations and Killing: Prosecuting Blackwater”, Shooting to Kill conference, Oñati, Gipuzkoa, Spain, June 2009
  • “Taking the Social Responsibilities of Corporations Seriously”, University of Vienna, May 2009
  • “Policy Politics and Populism: What’s Really Important about Bills of Rights”, New Wales Young Lawyers Symposium, Sydney, May 2009
  • “State duty to Protect: A Commentary on the UN SRSG’s new Mandate for Human Rights and Corporations”, UN SRSG Consultation, New Delhi, India, February, 2009.
  • “Response to Lord Bingham, “Human Rights, Equality and Fundamental Freedoms: What Difference does a Human Rights Act Make?”, Australian Human Rights Commission, Sydney, December 2008
  • “The Global Financial Crisis and the Human Rights of the Poor: Opportunity of Catastrophe” Sydney Centre for International Law, November 2008
  • “Civilising Globalisation”, Corporate Social Responsibility, Business Responsibilities for Human Rights, and International Law, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, November 2008
  • “The Global Financial Crisis and Human Rights”, Business and Fundamental Rights , South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law Conference, Johannesburg, October 2008.
  • “The Limitations and Possibilities of International Law, Politics and Economic Aid”, NSW Young Lawyers Seminar on Human Rights in Burma, September, 2008.
  • “Human Rights and the Global Economy”, Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, Cambridge University; April 2008
  • ‘The Global Financial Crisis and Human Rights: Opportunity or Catastrophe?’, presented at the Sydney Centre for International Law Seminar, Sydney Law School, 18 November 2008;
  • ‘The Human Rights Implications of Vietnam's Membership of the WTO’, presented at the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law conference World Trade Organization Human Rights: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Monash University Prato Centre, Italy, 21-22 June 2007
  • ‘Corporate Social Responsibility and Human Rights’, presented at the Human Rights and the Global Economy, Judicial Commission of NSW Annual Conference, Hawkesbury, NSW, September 2007
  • ‘The Executive and Bills of Rights: Not Just Steak-knives…But Icebergs’, presented at the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies 2007 Protecting Human Rights Conference, University of Melbourne, 25 September 2007
  • ‘Human Rights Law’, presented at the Australian Centre for Environmental Law conference Beyond Environmental Law: Intersections Between Legal Disciplines and the Environment, Sydney, 16-17 February 2007
  • ‘Human Rights Fundamentalisms’, Inaugural Lecture Chair in Human Rights Law, University of Sydney Law School, 6 December 2006
  • ‘The World Bank and Human Rights: the Political Dimensions of Legal Obligations’, The World Bank Legal Forum 2005: Law, Equity and Development, Washington DC, December 2005
  • ‘Promoting Human Rights in Problem Places’, Fulbright Symposium on Human Rights, Peace and Education, University of Melbourne, June 2005
  • ‘Rights and Development: Approaches to Reform of Governance in Asia’, Development, Human Rights and the World Bank, City University of Hong Kong, May 2005