Alumni Achievers
The following are highlights of just some of our alumni achievers...
Jim Hanna (BA/LLB 1995)
Since graduation Jim has worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He completed the following postings with DFAT after having undergone Arabic Language training in Cairo in 1997-98: Saudi Arabia (Third Secretary) 1999-2000; Lebanon (Second Secretary) 2000-2003; Iraq (First Secretary) 2003-2004. Jim is now working with Kane Developments in Sydney.
Dr James D Wolfensohn AO KBE (LLB '57, DScEcon '97)
President of the World Bank for the past decade, has confirmed he will retire from his post later this year. He told the ABC television network in the US that the time had come for him to pass on the baton after 10 years at the helm of the global institution. "I had 10 years and I think that's probably enough," the 71-year-old Mr Wolfensohn said. He is due to wrap up his second five-year term as the Washington-headquartered bank's president in June. He said he would consider staying on if required. "If the need is there, I'll do whatever the shareholders want," he said. "My understanding and my belief is that probably during the course of this year, I'll give it over to someone else."
Russell Trood
Graduated Bachelor of Laws (Sydney) in 1972. Following a short period in legal practice in Sydney in 1978 he undertook a Masters of Science (Economics) majoring in Strategic Studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He then undertook further graduate studies in International Relations at Dalhousie University, completing a PhD in 1989. Since then Dr Trood has held teaching positions at the Australian National University and Griffith University specialising in Australian foreign policy and Asia Pacific security. Prior to his election to the Senate he was Associate Professor of International Relations in the Department of International Business and Asian Studies at Griffith University.
Azadeh Dastyari BA (Syd) 2001; LLB (Syd) 2003)
Throughout her time at Sydney University, Azadeh has been involved in community work, both within the University of Sydney and in the wider society. In 2000 she took over as editor of Collage, a publication focusing on issues affecting people from non-English speaking backgrounds, and also edited Tangent, An Anthology of Women’s Words, (University of Sydney, 2000). In the same year she served as the University of Sydney’s Ethnic Affairs Officer and was part of the Iranian community’s Social Justice Committee. She remains an active member of this Committee and of The University of Sydney Women’s Collective and the Progressive Law Student’s Network. She was a sponsored delegate to the Global Alliance for Justice Education 2nd Global Conference in Durban, SA in 2001 and to the Students and Sustainability Conference in Perth (2002). During her time at law school, Azadeh was also a regular volunteer at the Redfern Legal Centre, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, as well as working as a researcher at the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC). She has also worked as researcher at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.
However, it is through Azadeh’s work with refugees that we have all come to regard Azadeh as a truly outstanding advocate and ‘local hero’. She is one of the co-ordinators and founders of the Refugee Advocacy Volunteer Network (RAVN), which is a collection of law students who undertake casework on behalf of refugees under the supervision of volunteer lawyers. The students organize visits to immigration detention centres, run training courses for student volunteers, hold public forums to raise awareness of the plight of the children, women and men held in detention, and assist refugees to make ministerial intervention applications. RAVN currently has 150 active law student volunteers, the vast majority of whom are Sydney University law students.
Azadeh has been an active member of Baxter Watch, a support group which keeps in regular contact with detainees in the Baxter immigration detention centre. She is also the founding member of the North West Friends for Refugees, a group organized in the Hills area of Sydney to lobby politicians on refugee rights, and is an active member of the group, Children Out of Detention. She was on the organizing committee of the Freedom Bus, which was a bus trip organized to visit detainees in remote immigration detention centres in July 2002, and was the refugee team co-ordinator of Amnesty International’s NSW branch (2002). She is also a volunteer at the Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS).
Notwithstanding Azadeh’s outstanding involvement in social justice and other community projects, Azadeh maintained a high academic standing, as evidenced by her First Class Honours degree in law. She is also an accomplished author. In addition to the publications referred to earlier, she achieved the placing of runner-up at the Sydney Writer’s Festival competition 2002. While at Law School, Azadeh was awarded the Walter Reid Memorial Book Grant (2002), the William Charles Wentworth Bursary Scholarship (2000 and 2001), and the Sydney University Law Students Association Scholarship to attend the 2001 GAJE Conference in Durban, SA.
Azadeh is currently undertaking studies at the College of Law prior to being admitted as a lawyer. She is also working part time with Dr Mary Crock at Sydney Law School as researcher on an ARC funded project examining the treatment of unaccompanied children in need of refugee protection.
When asked to comment on what her time at Sydney Law School meant to her Azadeh explained “As an incredibly privileged group, we lawyers have the information and resources needed to contribute to both the oppression and the liberation of underprivileged and dis-empowered groups within our society. The work of some lawyers working with groups such as incarcerated refugees is but one example of the inspiring contribution the legal profession can make. Organisations open to students within the law school such as the Global Alliance for Justice Education, programs such as the External Placement Program and teachers who encouraged critical thinking within the university can help ensure that future generations of lawyers are socially aware and just in their advocacy and application of the law. A university that offers programs enabling students to chose an alternative path to corporate law can attract a higher caliber of students and ensure that the alumni have the resources needed to be fair, well rounded and effective as lawyers.”
