Brian Burdekin is currently Visiting Professor at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden and Professorial Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law. He is also international advisor to many National Human Rights Commissions in Asia, Africa and Central and Eastern Europe.
As Special Adviser on National Institutions, Regional Arrangements and Preventive Strategies to the first three United Nations High Commissioners for Human Rights, he conducted over 200 missions to countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America where governments or civil society wanted to create an independent Human Rights Commission. In the past 25 years he has helped to establish such Commissions in over 70 countries and is generally considered to be the leading international expert on the subject.
Brian graduated in Arts and Law from Melbourne University; he completed an LLM at Georgetown University in Washington DC. In 1995 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to human rights. His work with homeless young people led to his appointment as Chair of the Australian Youth Foundation (1990-98) and he has been patron of the Burdekin Association for homeless young people in Sydney and the Burdekin Clinic in Adelaide for over 20 years.
