Keynote Speech by Dr Alice Jill Edwards

Read and download the keynote address by Dr Alice Jill Edwards

Dr Alice Jill Edwards is an internationally renowned human rights lawyer, diplomat and scholar. In July 2022, she was appointed by the UN’s Human Rights Council, the world’s ultimate human rights body, to be the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the UN’s top independent expert on torture-related matters. After nearly 40 years of men occupying this important global position, she is the first woman (and first Australian) to take up the role after a concerted campaign by advocates. She took up her functions on 1 August 2022.

Dr Edwards has been an advisor to the United Nations and regional bodies, as well as governments, national institutions and civil society; has published over 50 books, articles and reports that have influenced international law, policy and practice; and is multi-lingual speaking English, French and Portuguese. Principal authored and co-edited books include Human Security and Non-Citizens (CUP 2010), Violence against Women under International Human Rights Law (CUP 2011), Nationality and Statelessness under International Law (CUP 2014), and In Flight from Conflict and Violence: UNHCR’s Consultations on Refugee Status and Other Forms of International Protection (CUP  2017). She developed ground-breaking legal arguments in various areas, including that rape is a form of torture and persecution, enabling hundreds of thousands of women and girls to be able to obtain refugee status. She was also at the forefront of developments at the United Nations on alternatives to immigration detention, after publishing two key studies on the subject. She is an Australian-qualified lawyer with degrees from UTAS, the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, and a PhD from the Australian National University, studying under an Australian Postgraduate Award.

Alice has lived in some of the world’s most troubled and impoverished places, working in the aid communities across Bosnia and Herzegovina, Morocco, Mozambique, and Rwanda, as well as in Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Her career has brought her directly into the corridors of power most recently leading an inter-governmental initiative of the governments of Chile, Denmark, Fiji, Ghana, Indonesia and Morocco, and supported by Australia, aspiring to eradicate torture and ill-treatment in all its forms (2016-2021); and previously as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ principal legal adviser as chief of section – protection policy and legal advice, the youngest woman to fill this key institutional position (2010-2015). She has dedicated her career to the rights of women and girls, refugees and stateless persons, and communities exposed to war violence.