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Assoc Professor

Suzanne Egan

Associate Professor

School of Law

  • Associate Professor
    School of Law
  • 01 716 4158
  • University College Dublin, School of Law, Sutherland School of Law Belfield Dublin 4

BIO

Dr. Suzanne Egan is Associate Professor and Director of Knowledge Exchange at the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin. Suzanne played a leading role in establishing the interdisciplinary UCD Centre for Human Rights and was its founding Director from 2015-2019. She has published widely in the fields of international human rights law and policy and was awarded a Higher Doctorate of Laws (LLD) by the National University of Ireland in 2017 for her published work in the field. Significant works include her book on The UN Human Rights Treaty System: Law and Procedure (Bloomsbury, 2012) which was shortlisted for the Irish Association of Law Teachers, Kevin Boyle prize for outstanding legal scholarship; her edited collection, International Human Rights Law: Perspectives from Ireland (Bloomsbury, 2015); and Extraordinary Rendition and Human Rights: Examining State Accountability and Complicity (Palgrave, 2019). Suzanne is Short Articles Editor for the Irish Jurist and an Editor of the Human Rights Education Review. She teaches courses on Human Rights Law and Human Rights Education at the Law School and was awarded a Teaching Excellence Award by UCD in 2017, and a further award by the College of Social Sciences and Law in 2022 for her sustained commitment to teaching excellence and student learning.

Suzanne is a graduate of U.C.D. and Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto and a qualified barrister. Prior to lecturing at UCD, she was the Legal Supervisor of an independent research centre on refugee law and policy in Canada and a Research Assistant at the Law Reform Commission in Ireland. She has engaged in human rights training for various non-governmental organisations, the Council of Europe as well as members of the legal profession. In 2000, she was appointed by the government to serve as a Member of the Irish Human Rights Commission and was subsequently re-appointed for a second term in 2006. She was also a member of the Joint Committee of the Irish Human Rights Commission and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (2001-2012). Suzanne has been invited on several occasions to brief members of the Irish Parliament on key issues of international human rights law and has provided advice to the Irish Constitutional Convention on the concept of an all-Ireland Charter of Human Rights suggested in the Belfast Agreement 1998. Suzanne has been a Visiting Professor at De Paul Law School, Chicago, the University of Connecticut and a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program (2011-2012). She is currently an honorary Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Bristol's, Human Rights Implementation Centre.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN APPOINTMENTS

  • Director, UCD Centre for Human Rights
    University College Dublin, School of Law, Dublin 4, Ireland1 May 2015 - 31 Aug 2019
  • Director Of Knowledge Exchange
    UCD, School of Law, Dublin, Ireland2 Sep 2019

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Honorary Visiting Research Fellow
    University of Bristol, Human Rights Implementation Centre, Bristol, United Kingdom2 Sep 2019
  • Visiting Fellow
    Harvard University, Law School, International Human Rights Clinic, Cambridge MA, United States of America5 Sep 2011 - 31 Aug 2012
  • Commissioner
    Government of Ireland, Irish Human Rights Commission, Ireland30 Dec 1999 - 30 Dec 2011

DEGREES

  • BCL
    University College Dublin
  • BL
    Hon Society of Kings Inns IRL
  • Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
    The Queen's University of Belfast
  • LLD
    National University of Ireland
  • LLM
    York University Ontario