Alice Jill Edwards is an Australian lawyer and scholar. She is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Early life

Edwards was born in Australia and took a bachelor's degree at the University of Tasmania. She holds a Master of Laws from the University of Nottingham and a Diploma in International and Comparative Law from the International Institute of Human Rights in France. She returned to Australia to take a PhD in Public International Law at Australian National University.[1] She then worked for Amnesty International and Mozambique-based NGO.[2]

Career

Edwards began working at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva and from 2010 until 2015 was Chief of Section – Protection Policy and Legal Advice. Then from 2016 until 2021, she led the secretariat of the Convention against Torture Initiative (CTI).[3] She also sits on the editorial board of the journals Torture and Migration Studies.[3]

She was appointed the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 2022.[2] In a report presented to the United Nations in March 2023, Edwards stated "the national duty to investigate torture is alarmingly, universally, under-implemented".[4] She encouraged countries to do more to investigate allegations of torture.[5]

She investigated torture in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War.[6]

Selected works

  • (2017) In Flight from Conflict and Violence: UNHCR Consultations on Refugee Status and Other Forms of International Protection
  • (2014) Nationality and Statelessness under International Law
  • (2011) Violence against Women under International Human Rights Law

References

  1. ↑ Edwards, Alice Jill (2008). Violence against women, feminist theory, and the United Nations human rights treaty bodies (Thesis). doi:10.25911/5d7783fc8b4b4 – via via Trove.
  2. 1 2 "Dr. Alice Jill Edwards". OHCHR. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  3. 1 2 "Dr. Alice Edwards". Refugee Law Initiative. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  4. ↑ "National prosecutions key to breaking cycle of impunity for torture: UN expert". Relief Web. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  5. ↑ "Too many nations failing to investigate torture cases, UN expert says". UN GENEVA. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  6. ↑ Gall, Carlotta (2023-09-10). "Ukrainian Accounts of Torture Point to Systematic Russian Policy, Expert Says". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
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