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Hina Jilani to deliver the Annual Hal Wootten Lecture at UNSW on 17 September 2009 2009 Hal Wootten Lecture Hina Jilani is one of the world’s leading human rights lawyers. A trail blazer in the life and death struggle for rights in Pakistan, she is now internationally recognised for her leadership and expertise in a range of critical human rights investigations. Hina Jilani is a remarkable lawyer and a remarkable woman who has fought courageously, inspirationally and imaginatively for human rights for over 30 years. Born in Pakistan in 1953, she has faced the great challenges in that country to the rule of law, individual liberty, and the rights of women, minorities, and prisoners, amongst other groups subject to discrimination. She has done so with such distinction that she has frequently been called on by the international community to help in other scenes of conflict. She is an Advocate of the High Court and of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. In 1981 Hina and her sister established Pakistan’s first all-women’s law firm, and have continued to campaign on behalf of the most vulnerable members of society, successfully fighting cases for victims of domestic, fundamentalist and feudalistic violence, and the victims of so-called `honour killings` - where women who have left their husbands are killed by their own families for bringing dishonour on them. Cases conducted have on numerous occasions become landmarks for setting standards for human rights in Pakistan. For example, favourable judgments were obtained from the courts on the question of a woman’s right to marry a man of her own choice, and without the consent of a guardian. Special areas of concern have been the rights of women, minorities, children and prisoners, including political prisoners. Work in these areas has included legal aid, advocacy for rights, proposing and preparing legislative drafts for law reform, and designing and conducting projects for the protection, promotion and implementation of the human rights of disadvantaged groups and their social, political and economic development. Hina sees her special concern for women’s rights in a wider context: “There was a martial law, against which a political movement for the restoration of democracy was going on. I was very much a part of that. It was a new perception of women’s rights in a way, because I very strongly felt that women’s rights could not be fought for individually. They had to be part of the larger human rights movement - a very political movement.” Although for many women in Pakistan Hina and her sister represent symbols of freedom, their opponents view them as symbols of the destruction of family values. As a result, they have been arrested, received death threats, and faced hostile propaganda, intimidation, public abuse and murder attempts on themselves and their family. Hina has been threatened time and again: on one occasion, a client was shot dead in front of her eyes. Another time, gunmen entered her house and threatened members of her family. In 1986 she was a founder of the first free legal aid centre in Pakistan, of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a non-governmental body, and of the Women’s Action Forum. The Women’s Action Forum is a pressure group campaigning against Pakistan’s discriminatory legislation, including the Evidence Law, where the value of a woman`s testimony was reduced to half that of a male testimony, and the Hadood Ordinances, where victims of rape had to prove their innocence or else face punishment themselves. She and her sister were arrested for their part in protests against these laws. (For Hina’s own account, see the 2008 interview on the ABC Law Report http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lawreport/stories/2008/2209518.htm). Hina Jilani has given a wealth of service to the international community. She has participated in formal and informal Expert Group meetings of the UN Human Rights Bodies, she has represented UN Agencies like UNICEF and UNIFEM at regional and international meetings and conferences as expert in specific fields of human rights. She has all through her career worked both nationally and internationally with a range of NGOs and NGO networks, and is member of the council and founding board of several international human rights institutions. She is a member of the Eminent Jurists Panel appointed by the International Commission of Jurists to consider the compatibility of laws, policies and practices, which are justified expressly or implicitly as necessary to counter terrorism, with international human rights law and, where applicable, with international humanitarian law. In 2004 she was appointed a member of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur. In April of this year she became a member of the UN Commission led by Richard Goldstone to investigate breaches of human rights and international humanitarian law in Gaza conflict. Among the many honorary degrees and other awards she has received, one may note the Human Rights Award by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (1999), the Amnesty International Genetta Sagan Award for Women’s Rights (2000), the Millennium Peace Prize for Women (2001), and the International Human Rights Lawyer Award of the American Bar Association’s Section of International Law (2008). Hina Jilani is coming to Australia in September 2009 at the invitation of the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales to deliver the 2009 Hal Wootten Lecture. This lecture is open to the public. REGISTRATION CLOSED
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