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Prof. Gerard Quinn

Contact Information

Tel: +353 (0)91 493014
Fax: +353 (0)91 495569
Office: Rm 207, Block T, NUI Galway.
email: gerard.quinnnuigalway.ie

Biography

Professor Gerard Quinn is a leading authority on international and comparative disability law and policy and is a professor of law at NUI Galway. 

He directs the Director of the Centre for Disability Law and Policy at the School of Law which was established by a grant from Atlantic Philanthropies in 2008. The Centre is a founding member of the Lifecourse Policy Research Institute at the University.  He was called to the Irish Bar in 1983, and holds a masters (LL.M) and doctorate in law (SJD) from Harvard Law School as well as a BA (Political Science) and LL.B from NUI Galway.

His animating philosophy is ’scholarship in action’ which means placing the assets of the university at the service of democratic reform processes. In keeping with this philosophy he has undertaken many different roles outside of the academy in government, international treaty monitoring bodies and with civil society.  He was director of the Irish Government’s Law Reform Commission and also a civil servant in the European Commission where he helped change EU policy on disability.  He served on the Irish Government’s Commission on the Status of persons with Disabilities (1993-1996) and the Irish Human Rights Commission (2002-2012).  He led the delegation of Rehabilitation International during the negotiations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in New York.  And he served as First Vice President of the Committee on Economic and Social Rights under a Council of Europe treaty on social rights where he developed its jurisprudence on the rights of older people as well as people with disabilities.

Gerard sits on various international advisory boards dealing with disability law and policy issues such as SOROS-Open Society Foundation (Washington, DC), the European Foundation Centre Consortium on Disability (Brussels), the European Coalition for Community Living (London) and Interights (London). He received the Presidential Award of excellence from Rehabilitation International in 2008 and in 2012 he was named by Enterprise Ireland as a ’Champion of European Research.’ More recently he was appointed by President Michael D. Higgins to serve on the Council of State which provides constitutional advice to the President.

Gerard’s Research

Gerard’s research has always been crafted for high impact.  He co-authored the first book in the world on comparative disability law in 1992.  This led directly to his appointment both to the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities and to the European Commission.  He continues to produce research for and with the European Commission on a variety of disability topics and more particularly on EU implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of people with disabilities.  He has led several research networks for the European Commission and currently directs a Europe-wide Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN) PhD network on the UN Convention.  His aim through such networks is to form the next generation of disability policy entrepreneurs who have the skills to impact processes of change.

In 2001 He co-authored and led a major Study for the United Nations on “Human Rights and Disability: The Current Use and Future Potential of United National Human Rights Instruments in the Context of Disability” which was the first serious articulation of the case for a treaty.  It had a major bearing on the treaty negotiations in the UN where he chaired a working group on non-discrimination.  His more recent research includes one of the first books on the UN Convention (Nijhoff, 2009) and another major Study for the UN on the EU Structural Funds and their potential to help achieve community living across Europe (2012).  He co-edits (with Professor Lisa Waddington of Maastricht University and Dr Eilionoir Flynn of NUI Galway) an annual internationally peer reviewed Yearbook on European Disability Law published by Intersentia (entering Vol. 4 in 2013). He publishes regularly in major international law reviews and has contributed many chapters to volumes published by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.  His works have been widely translated into Russian, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Georgian.

To date he has directly raised approximately €8 million in research awards and philanthropic grants. He has indirectly raised another €3 million in collaboration with others. He leads the International Summer School on Disability Law at NUI Galway which enters its fifth session in 2013 and attracts a worldwide audience.  In 2011 his students took the initiative to set up the country’s first university-based Disability Legal Information Clinic.

Areas of Research & Postgraduate Supervision

• United Nations and disability & policy (especially the United National Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities)
• European Union and disability law & policy (especially discrimination issues).
• Council of Europe & disability law & policy.
• Comparative US and European approaches to disability law.
• Development aid and disability.
• eAccessibility.

Courses

• Comparative Disability Law (LL.B.).
• Theories of Judicial activism (LL.M. in Public Law).
• Ph.D disability law & policy programme.

sample of funded research

• Atlantic Philanthropies, €1.5 million (2012-2014).  Renewal of core research funding which enabled Professor Quinn to launch the Centre on Disability Law & Policy – a core part of the Lifecourse Policy Research Institute on age, children & families on campus (2008-2011).  The Centre offers an international PhD programme, a pioneering masters progrmme (LLM) in international & comparative disability law and regularly hosts international disability law conferences & seminars.   It employs a Director, a Senior Researcher, a Research Associate, two Research Assistants, Business Manager, one administrative assistant,.  It hosts legal interns from Northeastern Law School and the University of Virginia as well as visiting scholars. It also employs three early stage researchers on the EU DREAM ITN project.
  
• EU Framework 7, Marie Curie Initial Training Network grant: DREAM – Disability Rights Expanding Accessible Markets (2011-2014: no 265057). €3.7 million.  The project which links 5 European academic institutions is led by the CDLP in Galway.  The object is to train 14 early stage researchers on the UN convention & EU law to enable them become disability policy entrepreneursat European level. 
  
• United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, European Region: (2011-2012). US $22,000.  Commissioned to write a legal study on the re-negotiation of the EU Stuctural Funds from a disability perspective.
• European Union Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA). ’Fundamental rights of persons with intellectual disabilities and mental health problems’.  Call: D/SE/10/02.  2011-2012). €456,000. The Centre for Disability Law & Policy is part of a consortium managed by European Human Consultancy.  It has produced a major report on, inter alia, legal capacity laws in Europe (to be published by EU FRA in June 2012).   This is the first call by FRA in this field.  Professor Gerard Quinn is on its scientific board.
  
• European Commission, DG Employment, Social Affairs & Equality.  (2009-1010). €250,000.  VC/2008/1214. Produced research for a large Study (managed by the European Foundation Centre) mapping the UN disability convention onto EU law and policy.  Published in January 2011.  The overall amount of the award was
  
• Atlantic Philanthropies, €2.8 million (2008-2011).  This award was made in recognition of achievements and to enable Professor Quinn to launch a fully dedicated Disability Law & Policy Research Centre at the National University of Ireland (Galway).  Such awards cannot be solicited but are made based on track record in the field. The Centre’s mission is to produce change agents in the field of disability law & policy.
• European Commission, DG Information Society.   (2008-2009).  e€100,000.  The Centre on Disability Law & Policy was part of a consortium that led to the successful award of a research contract from DG Information Society.  This project was designed to lay out legislative and other regulatory options for the European Commission in the field of eAccessibility (making the internet accessible to blind and older persons).  It led to two major publications.
  
• Irish Government Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI). (2009-2012). €300,000. 100% funding for 3 PhDs on disability law over 4 years.
  
• European Commission, DG Employment & Social Affairs. (2002-2004).   €200,000. European Network of Experts on Disability Discrimination Law.  Prof Quinn hosted and managed this network.
• European Commission, DG Employment & Social Affairs (2005-2006).  €100,000.  International Summer School on European Disability Law.  This was funded for two years (with 14 nationalities attending).
  

Publications

Recent

• Quinn, G., & Flynn, E., “Transatlantic Borrowings: The Past and Future of EU Non-Discrimination Law and Policy on the Ground of Disability”, symposium issue in American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 60, Issue 1, January 2012.
• Quinn, G. & Waddington, L., (Eds), ’European Yearbook on Disability Law’, Volume 1 (2009),  Intersentia, Netherlands.  This is the first ever annual review of important European legal & policy developments – modeled in similar American Bar Association publications. Elements of these Volumes are being translated into Chinese by Renmin Law School, Beijing.
• Quinn, G., & Arnardottir O, ’The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: European and Scandinavian Perspectives’, (Nijhof, Brill, 2009).
  
• Quinn, G., ’The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Towards a New International Politics of Disability,’ 15 Texas J. on Civil Liberties & Civil Rights, Fall 2009, 33-53.
• Quinn, G., ’Disability and Human Rights: a New Field in the United Nations’, in Krause, C., and Scheinin, M., (Eds), ’International Protection of Human Rights: a Textbook’ (Abo Akademi University, Institute for Human Rights,’ Turku/Abo, Finland, 2009).
• Quinn G., Disability Discrimination Law in the European Union, in Meenan H, (Ed), Equality Law in an Enlarged European Union: Understanding the Article 13 Directives, (Cambridge University Press 2007).
• Quinn., G, ’Dangerous Constitutional Moments: The Tactic of Legality in Nazi Germany and the Irish Free State Compared’, in Morrison, J. (Ed), ’Judges, Transition and Human Rights.’ (Oxford, 2007)
• Quinn, G. ’The European Social Charter and EU Anti-discrimination Law – Two Force Fields with one Purpose’ in ’The Protection of Social Rights in Europe:  Changes and Challenges’, edited by Gráinne de Búrca, Bruno de Witte and Larissa Ogertschnig (Oxford University Press, 2006).
  
• Quinn., G., ’The Legal Status of the European Social Charter: Taking Interdependence and Indivisibility of Human Rights Seriously’, in ’The State of International Treaties and Human Rights’, (Venice Commission, Council of Europe, Strasbourg 2006).
  
• Quinn., G., ’The Legal Status of the European Social Charter: Taking Interdependence and Indivisibility of Human Rights Seriously’, in ’The State of International Treaties and Human Rights’, (Venice Commission, Council of Europe, Strasbourg 2006).
  
• Quinn, G.  ’The Globalisation of Disability Law: An American Invention – A Worldwide Challenge’ in International Library of Essays on Rights, (Blanck P (Ed.), Ashgate, (2005). 
• Quinn G., Degener, T., ’A Survey of International, Comparative and Regional Disability Law Reform, (with Degener T) in Breslin & Yee (Eds), Disability Rights Law and Policy: International and National Perspectives, (Transnational, NY, 2002), p3-129.  Now published with a separate Japanese translation (2004).
• Quinn, G., Degener, T., (Eds), Human Rights and Disability: The Current Use and Future Potential of United Nations Human Rights Instruments in the Context of Disability, Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations, Geneva, (2002),184 pages (published in English, French, Chinese, Spanish & Russian).
• Quinn, G, ’The Draft EU Charter on Human Rights, Issues and Perspectives’, House of Lords, 2000.
  

Forthcoming

• Quinn, G., & Waddington, L, (Eds),  ’European Yearbook on Disability Law,’ Vol 2, (2010), Intersentia, Netherlands.  Vol 3 is due in 2012.
• Quinn, G.,  Poverty, Invisibility and Disability: the Liberating Potential of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in Van Buren, G., (Ed), Freedom from Poverty, (UNESCO, 2008).
• Quinn, Degener, Stein, Begg, Byrnes & Lord (Eds), The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Cambridge University Press, 2009.  

Recent Conference Papers

• Quinn, G., Address, ’The Evolution of a Comonwealth Strategy on Disability – Refelections on Key Reform Challenges,’  Commonwealth Conference on Disability, London, 10 January 2012.
• Quinn, G., Address, ’Thinking Strategically about Disability Litigation,’ Interights seminar, London, 15 December 2011.
• Quinn, G., Written & oral testimony before the Irish Senate - Committee on Public Consultation, hearing on a UN convention on the Rights of Older People, 29 November, 2011, Dublin.
• Quinn, G., Keynote Address, The National Federation of Voluntary Bodies: 'Supporting Citizenship - The Future of Services for Persons with Disabilites in Ireland. ’ Some Reflections on the Impact of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. 23 June 2011, Kildare.
• Quinn, G., Address: ’Independent Living and UN Disability Convention,’ seminar for Israeli disability NGOs, 13 June, 2011, Tel Aviv, Israel.
• Quinn, G., Keynote Address, Newfoundland and Labrador Association for Community Living symposium: ’Taking Personhood Seriously: Legal Capacity Law Reform and the UN Disability Convention,’ St. John's, 21 June 2011, Newfoundland, Canada.
• Quinn, G., Keynote Address, University of British Columbia, Centre for Inclusion and Citizenship, “Personhood and Disability”,  29 April, 2011, Vancouver, Canada.
• Quinn, G., Address, European Commission Work Forum in on "Monitoring: Article 33 of the UN Disability Convention,"  12th October, 2010, Brussels.
• Quinn, G., Keynote Address, Loyola Law School of Los Angeles Conference on disability law: ’Towards a new Model of Supported Decision making for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities.’ Los Angeles, 19 March, 2010.
  Quinn, G., ’ Personhood & Legal Capacity Perspectives on the Paradigm Shift of Article 12 CRPD’, HPOD Conference, Harvard Law School, 20 February, 2010.
• Quinn, G., “ The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – what role for Philanthropy?”, International Human Rights Funders Group, San Francisco, 25 January 2010.
• Quinn, G., Keynote Address: ’ Implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - The Institutional Architecture for Change’, Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium, NFB Headquarters Baltimore, Maryland, USA April 17, 2009.
• Conference of States Parties to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, United National Headquarters, New York City, 31 October, 2008.
• Quinn, G., Keynote Address: ’The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as an Engine of Law Reform’, Swedish Presidency of the Council of Europe Conference on Disability, 30 October, Strasbourg, 2008.
• Quinn, G., ’The Monitoring Provision of the Un Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’,  Conference on Legal Measures to Ratify and Implement the CRPD, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 24 October, Geneva, 2008.
• Quinn, G., Keynote Address: ’The Right to Independent Living for Persons with Disabilities’, European Coalition for Community Living, Drammen, Oslo, 12 September 2008.
• Quinn, G., Keynote Address: Future Prospects for the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’, Rehabilitation International Global Conference, Quebec City, 25 August, 2008.
• Quinn, G., ’Social Justice and Rights – the case of Disability’, American Bar Association conference, New York City, 9 August, 2008.
• Quinn, G., Keynote Address: ’The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – the link with Philanthropy’, European Foundation Centre, Istanbul, 28 May, 2008.
• Quinn, G., Keynote Address: ’The Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities viewed from the United States’, YAI Annual Conference, New York City, 2 May, 2008.
• Quinn, G., Keynote Address: Monitoring the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’, Cardiff University, 18 April, 2008.
• Quinn, G., Keynote Address: ’The Role of Service Providers under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’, European Association of Service Providers (EASPD) 14 February, 2008, Rome.
• Quinn, G. Keynote Address: ’Disabled Persons as Market Actors’: European Commission, European Day of Persons with Disabilities, Brussels 3 December 2007.
• Quinn, G, Chair and facilitator of EU Ministerial Meeting: European Ministerial Conference on eAccessibility, Lisbon, 1 December 2007.