Kent Law School Honorary Professor Tom Hadden has been commissioned by one of the world’s principal regional human rights bodies to write an introduction for a set of guidelines on freedom of movement for those fleeing from conflict.
The guidelines, intended for use by field officers and others, are being produced by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The ODIHR provides support, assistance and expertise to participating States and civil society to promote democracy, rule of law, human rights and tolerance and non-discrimination. It observes elections, reviews legislation and advises governments on how to develop and sustain democratic institutions.
Professor Hadden will visit the ODIHR’s office in Warsaw this week to finalise the draft for his ‘conceptual introduction.’
Professor Hadden previously worked at Queen’s University Belfast and is pictured with QUB LLM graduate Sofia Botzios at the ODIHR’s headquarters. He is currently working, with assistance from two LLM students at Kent and Belfast, on a proposal for the extension of human rights standards into the battlefield to supplement or replace those of armed conflict law which have resulted in such dreadful death and destruction throughout the Middle East.
Professor Hadden served on the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights in the 1980s and was a Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission from 1999 to 2005. His most recent academic work has been the production of collectively authored research reports: A Responsibility to Assist: Human Rights Policy and Practice in European Union Conflict Management Operations (Hart 2009); The Belfast Guidelines on Amnesty and Accountability (Transitional Justice Institute 2013), and Fighting Corporate Abuse: Beyond Predatory Capitalism (Pluto 2014).