Masters of the Bench

Geraldine Van Bueren is Professor of International Human Rights Law at Queen Mary University of London and Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford. She is a barrister and an Associate Tenant at Doughty Street Chambers, and was appointed an Honorary Queen’s Counsel in recognition of her scholastic contributions to national and international law in 2013. She was elected a Bencher in 2012. She was a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and a member of the Attorney General’s International Pro Bono Committee.

In 2003, Geraldine was granted the Child Rights Lawyer Award. This accolade, jointly organised by the Law Society, UNICEF and The Lawyer magazine, recognises outstanding work in the field of children’s rights.

Geraldine is one of the original drafters of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. She also helped draft the UN Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty; the UNHCR Guidelines on Refugee Children; headed a UNESCO project ‘Law’s Duty to Poor’, and the UN Programme of Action on Children in the Criminal Justice System.

She has represented the UN in discussions with Iran, the Commonwealth Secretariat in Bangladesh, and has advised both the Government of Japan and UNICEF.

From 2002-06 she held the WP Schreiner Chair as Professor of International Human Rights Law at the University of Cape Town.

Geraldine co-founded Interights, an international human rights law centre based in London; represented Amnesty International for ten years at the UN on children’s rights issues; and is a member of the Advisory Board of Human Rights Watch; Child Rights International; the British Institute of Human Rights; and the René Cassin Foundation. She has also served as a Trustee of Save the Children.

Her writings have been cited, most recently, by the Constitutional Court of South Africa and the European Court of Human Rights, and in legislatures including the US Senate and the Australian Parliament. She serves as Director of the Human Rights Collegium at Queen Mary University of London.