Human Rights Committee - Members

Ivan SHEARER (Australia)

Date and place of birth: 9 December 1938 , Adelaide , Australia

Working Languages: Fluent English and German. Working-level French.

Current position/function:

UN Human Rights Committee Member since 2001. Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Sydney. President, International Law Association (Australian Branch). Member of the Panel of Arbitrators to the Permanent Court of Arbitration since 1986. Member of the List of Arbitrators, nominated by Australia under Article 2, Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Main professional activities:

Professor Shearer is a distinguished teacher, scholar and practitioner of human rights law specifically and international law generally. By virtue of his unique blend of legal, diplomatic and academic experience, he is ideally suited to continue to contribute to this vital committee. Professor Shearer has served as a Judge ad hoc in the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. He occupied the prestigious Challis Chair of International Law at the University of Sydney . Professor Shearer was the International Law Adviser to the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho under the United Nations Development Programme (1971-1973) and in this capacity was a member of the Lesotho delegation to UN conferences.

Educational background:

Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Sydney . Challis Professor of International Law, University of Sydney, 1993-2003. Professor of Law (and Dean of the Faculty of Law, 1984-1990), University of New South Wales (1975-1992). Educated at the University of Adelaide (Bachelor of Laws, 1960, Master of Laws, 1964) and at Northwestern University, Chicago (Doctor of Juridical Science, 1968).

Other main activities in the field relevant to the mandate of the treaty body concerned:

Professor Shearer's special fields of interest are human rights law, the law of armed conflict (including international humanitarian law), international criminal law (including extradition law) and the law of the sea. Professor Shearer has an intimate understanding of the relationship between developing countries and the UN human rights system. In April 2004, he presented seminars on the reporting obligations of states parties to international human rights instruments to the Government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Professor Shearer has also given lectures on human rights for visiting government legal officers from Vietnam , Bangladesh and China sponsored by the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) in 1998-1999.

List of most recent publications in the field:

"The Implications of Non-Treaty Law Making: Customary Law and its Implications", in Alston and Chan (eds), Treaty-Making and Australia 93-103 (Federation Press, Sydney, 1995); "The Human Rights Committee and the Toonen Case", 69 Australian Law Journal 600-609 (1995); "Extradition and Human Rights", 68 Australian Law Journal 451-455 (1994); "Extraditing Heads of State", 10 Public Law Review 179-184 (1999).

[This profile can be found in the document CCPR/SP/62]