Lectures

The 2008 Miriam Rothschild and John Foster Human Rights Trust Lecture took place on 17 November at the Institute of Child Health, University College London. The speaker was Professor William Sutherland and the Chair was Sir John Gurdon FRS.

Professor William Sutherland
William Sutherland holds the Miriam Rothschild chair in Conservation Biology at the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge and is delighted to follow in her footsteps. Before that he was Professor of Ecology at the University of East Anglia.

He has written two books: From Individual Behaviour to Population Ecology; The Conservation Handbook: Research, Management and Policy Techniques and edited another five: Ecological census techniques:a handbook; Bird Ecology and Conservation: a handbook of techniques; Behaviour and Conservation; Conservation Science and Action and Habitat Management.

He is interested in global conservation problems and combining research and policy to make science relevant. He set up Gratis book scheme that has given away over 5,000 conservation and ecology books to over 170 countries including over 3,000 copies of The Conservation Handbook funded by being given free books in lieu of royalties. He has set up ConservationEvidence.com as a means of making conservation science available to practitioners.

He was awarded the Marsh Award for Ecology, the Scientific Medal, Zoological Society London and the Marsh Award for Conservation Biology.

Sir John Gurdon FRS
John Gurdon was educated at Christ Church, Oxford where he read Zoology. His PhD, with Michael Fischberg, was on nuclear transplantation in Xenopus. He obtained the first clone of genetically identical adult animals and demonstrated genetic totipotency of somatic cell nuclei by obtaining sexually mature frogs from the nuclei of intestinal epithelium. He did postdoctoral work at Cal-Tech, on bacteriophage genetics.

He then moved to the MRC Molecular Biology Laboratory in Cambridge, subsequently becoming Head of Cell Biology Division. In 1983, he accepted the John Humphrey Plummer Professorship of Cell Biology at the University of Cambridge, in the Zoology Department. He initiated, with Professor Ron Laskey, the Cancer Research Campaign unit of Molecular Embryology also in the Zoology Department in Cambridge. In 1990, he moved to the new Wellcome CRC Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology in Cambridge and served as its Chairman from 1990-2001 when the Institute was renamed The Gurdon Institute. John Gurdon was Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge from 1995 to 2002 and a governor of the Wellcome Trust 1995 to 2000

The main directions of Gurdon’s research have been:

(i) nuclear transplantation and the reprogramming of somatic nuclei;

(ii) the use of Xenopus eggs and oocytes for mRNA microinjection, and hence gene overexpression;

(iii) analysis of signaling in normal development, and the use of signaling factors for the redirection of cell differentiation.

Kate O'Regan grew up in Cape Town . She is married and has two children.

O'Regan obtained her LLB cum laude from UCT in 1980 and an LLM degree with first class honours from the University of Sydney in 1981. She holds a PhD from the University of London and honorary doctorates from the University of Natal and UCT.

From 1982 to 1985 she worked for a firm of attorneys in Johannesburg , specialising in labour law and land rights. During this time she was an executive member of the Industrial Aid Society, an advice office for the unemployed, as well as a roster lawyer for Actstop and the Black Sash.

In mid-1988 she was appointed as a senior researcher in the Labour Unit at UCT. In 1992 she was promoted to associate professor at the same university.

During her years at UCT, she was a founder member of the Institute of Development Law and the Law, Race and Gender Research Project. She was also a trustee of the Legal Resources Centre.

In 1994 O'Regan was appointed a Judge of the Constitutional Court.

She has been an honorary visiting professor at the University of South Africa and at the University of Cape Town , and holds honorary degrees from the University of Natal and the University of Cape Town.

O'Regan has written many articles on labour law, land and housing, race and gender equality, and constitutional law.

This information has been taken from the website of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, where further details may be found.

Professor Martin Rees is Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics and Master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He holds the honorary title of Astronomer Royal.

Further information may be found here.

Aharon Barak, born in in 1936, studied law, economics and international relations at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, receiving an MA in law in 1958, and a doctorate in 1963. He has served as Attorney General of Israel, 1975-1978 and President of the Supreme Court, 1995-2006.

Zackie Achmat is founder and chairman of Treatment Action Campaign and works on behalf of people in South Africa with HIV and AIDS.

Lecture for 2003

Dr Mamphela Ramphele is a South African businesswoman and doctor of medicine. She was an anti-apartheid activist. In 2000 she was appointed a managing director of the World Bank and is a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation.

Justice Anthony Gubbay is a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe (1990-2001). He was previously a Supreme Court judge (1983-1990), and High Court judge (1977-1983).

Sonia Picado Sotela is former Ambassador of Costa Rica to the United States. She has served as Vice President of the Executive Council and Executive Director of the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights (San José). She was a judge in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights at the Organization of American States.

Professor Sir Martin Gilbert is the offical biographer of Winston Churchill. As a leading historian of the modern world he has written extensively on the First World War as well as the Second World War and the Holocaust.

Further information may be found on his website.

Biographical information about the 1996 lecturer can be found on this external site.

http://www.jazbah.org/asmaj.php

Mary Robinson served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002 and as President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997. Before her election as President, Mrs. Robinson served as Senator, holding that office for 20 years. In 1969 she became Reid Professor of Constitutional Law at Trinity College, Dublin. She was called to the bar in 1967, becoming a Senior Counsel in 1980, and a member of the English Bar (Middle Temple) in 1973. Educated at Trinity College, Mrs. Robinson also holds law degrees from the King's Inns in Dublin and from Harvard University.

Mary Robinson is currently Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders, Vice President of the Club of Madrid, honorary President of Oxfam International, Member of the Vaccine Fund Board of Directors and member of the Leadership Council the UN Global Coalition on Women and AIDS. She is a Professor of Practice at Columbia University and member of the Advisory Board of the Earth Institute, and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria.

She founded Realizing Rights in 2002, an organisation whose mission is to put human rights standards at the heart of global governance and policy-making and to ensure that the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable are addressed on the global stage.

To follow

Professor Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998.

He contributed an autobiographical essay to the website of the Nobel Foundation.

Baroness Williams of Crosby was a founder of the SDLP.

Sir Sydney Kentridge was born in Johannesburg in 1922. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1977, in which year he was the lawyer at the inquest into the death of Steve Biko. He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1984 and later served as an appeal judge in Botswana and in Jersey and Guernsey. He was an acting judge in South Africa’s Constitutional Court.

Sir Sydney Kentridge is a member of Brick Court Chambers

The inaugural lecture of the Trust was delivered by one of its founders, Miriam Rothschild.