BIHR Advisors

We are lucky to be able to draw on a wide variety of knowledge, experience and skills thanks to the members of our advisory board. Members meet on average twice a year and many also provide strategic and other advice and support to BIHR in between meetings. The advisory board also appoints the President and Vice President of BIHR from among its members, on the recommendation of the trustees.

Rt Hon Lord Justice Stephen Sedley (President)

Sir Stephen was elected president of BIHR in January 2000. He practised at the Bar for 28 years, principally in the fields of civil liberties and discrimination law, until 1992 when he was appointed as a Judge of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court. He took office as a Lord Justice of Appeal in January 1999. He is currently an honorary Professor of Law at Warwick University and the University of Wales at Cardiff, and the Judicial Visitor at University College, London. He also holds a number of honorary doctorates. He delivered the 1995 Paul Sieghart Memorial Lecture, the 1996 Radcliffe Lectures (with Lord Nolan), the 1998 Hamlyn Lectures, the 2005 Holdsworth Lecture and the 2006 Blackstone Lecture. He also writes for the London Review of Books.

Frances Butler (Vice President)

Frances Butler became vice president of BIHR in 2004 having been vice chair from 1998 to 2003. She is an independent adviser on human rights policy, particularly the implementation of the Human Rights Act. Recent published work includes:

  • Rights for Real: Older People, Human Rights and the CEHR (Age Concern, 2006)
  • Improving Public Services: Using a Human Rights Approach; Strategies for Wider Implementation of the Human Rights Act Within Public Authorities (ippr/ Department for Constitutional Affairs, 2005)
  • Human Rights: who needs them? Using Human Rights in the Voluntary Sector (ippr/ Comic Relief, 2004).

She was formerly a visiting research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, a member of the task force advising the Government on arrangements for establishing the Commission for Equality and Human Rights and a specialist adviser to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. She is also a member of the executive board of Liberty.

Alex Milne

Practising barrister, specialising in criminal law. Former Governor of BIHR.

Baroness Janet Whitaker

Has had various professional, voluntary and parliamentary posts in international development and human rights.

Caroline Moorehead OBE, FRSL

Biographer. Writes about human rights, including her book about refugees and asylum Human Cargo, A journey among refugees.

Dame Audrey F Glover DBE, CMG

Human rights lawyer, former Head of ODIHR/ OSCE and of the UK Delegation to the UN Human RIghts Commission.

David Marks QC

David Marks is in practice at the Bar specialising in insolvency and commercial work. He was appointed QC in 2009.

He was formerly on the committee of the lawyers group attached to the British section of Amnesty International. David and other lawyers within Amnesty worked closely with the late Paul Sieghart in the years prior to Paul's death. In particular David helped organise a series of lectures with a number of eminent guest speakers to coincide with and celebrate the publication of Paul's key treatise on The International Law of Human Rights by the Oxford University Press.

 

 

Geraldine Van Bueren

Professor of International Human Rights Law, Queen Mary, University of London and Visiting Fellow Kellogg College, Oxford currently working on a UNESCO project on poverty and the law.