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Professor David Kinley

Profile

Degrees
BA CNAA; MA Sheff; PhD Camb

Brief Biographical Detail

David Kinley holds the inaugural Chair in Human Rights Law at Sydney University, which post he took up in April 2005. Formerly he was Professor and founding Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University in Melbourne, from 2000 to 2005.

He has taught at other universities in Australia (the Australian National University; University of New South Wales, and the University of Tasmania), and in the United Kingdom, at Cambridge University (where he obtained his doctorate in human rights and constitutional law in 1990). He has been a Visiting Fellow at the Universities of Edinburgh, Hong Kong and New South Wales and was the Australian representative on the European Union Visitor’s Program in 1996. He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in 2004 at Washington College of Law, American University, Washington DC.

In addition to the above countries, he has lectured and delivered papers in Canada, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA. He has also designed and delivered long and short courses in human rights to academics, NGOs and government officials from Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand, China, and Myanmar/Burma.

He has worked for many years as a consultant and adviser in international and domestic human rights law on various projects with the Australian Law Reform Commission, the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Ford Foundation, AusAID, and the World Bank, as well as a number of national and international NGOs and corporations. He is a member of the Human Rights Council of Australia and Australian Lawyers for Human Rights.

He is author/editor of five books and more than 60 articles, book chapters, reports and papers published internationally on a range of legal matters, but especially on human rights law.

He is currently working on a number of interrelated projects comprising principally, a study of the interrelations between the trade, the WTO and human rights under an ARC grant 2005-7; research flowing from another ARC project on corporations and human rights (2002-4), and a study of the human rights law dimensions of the World Bank and the IMF conducted under the auspices of the Fulbright scholarship 2004.

Most recent publications

Books | Monograph | Internet publication | Chapters in books | Refereed articles | Shorter articles and reviews

Books

  • Civilising Globalisation: Human Rights and the Global Economy, Cambridge University Press (forthcoming 2009)
  • Human Rights and Corporations, Ashgate (forthcoming 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

  • Discussion Paper for World Bank on Human Rights Implications of Private Sector Development Activities for World Bank Operations (180pp) (with T Davis) 2004

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

  • “'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

Refereed articles

  • ‘Trading and Aiding Human Rights in the Global Economy’ (with Nolan, J) (2007) 4 Nordic Journal of Human Rights 353-377
  • ‘The Politics of Corporate Social Responsibility: Reflections on the United Nations Human Rights Norms for Corporations’ (with Nolan, J, Zerial, N) (2007) 25(1) Company and Securities Law Journal 30-42
  • ‘Human Rights Fundamentalisms’ (2007) 29(4) Sydney Law Review 545-575
  • ‘Engaging a Pariah: Human Rights Training in Burma/Myanmar’ Wilson, T (2007) 29(2) Human Rights Quarterly 368-402
  • 'The UN Human Rights Norms for Corporations: The Private Implications of International Law' (with R Chambers) (2006) 6(3) Human Rights Law Review 447-497
  • "From Talk to Walk: The Emergence of Human Rights Responsibilities for Corporations at International Law", with Junko Tadaki , 44(4) Virginia Journal of International Law 931-10232004
  • "Transnational Corporations and International Human Rights Law" (with Nolan, J, Zerial, N) (2004) 44(4) Virginia Journal of International Law 931-1024
  • "Lawyers, Corporations and International Human Rights Law" (2004) (October issue) Company Lawyer 2004
  • "Human Rights, Globalization and the Rule of Law: Friends, Foes or Family?" 7(2) (2002-03) University of California, Los Angeles, Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs 239-64 2002-03
  • "International Human Rights Law at Home: Addressing the Politics of Denial", with Penny Martin, 26 (2002) Melbourne University Law Review 466-77 2002
  • "Multinational Corporations and Human Rights: Questions about their Relationship" 27 Alternative Law Journal, 7-11, (with S Joseph) 2002

Shorter articles and reviews

  • "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

Conference Presentations

  • ‘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)
  • ‘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 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)