Philip Alston

For the 18th century counterfeiter, see Philip Alston (counterfeiter). For the American lawyer and diplomat, see Philip H. Alston. For the basketball player, see Philip Alston (basketball).

Philip Alston
Born	(1950-09-04) 4 September 1950 (age 75) Melbourne, Australia
Citizenship	Australia
Occupations	Legal scholar International law expert
Employer	New York University School of Law
Known for	UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (2004–2010) UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights (2014–2020)
Title	John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law
Awards	Officer of the Order of Australia (2010) Honorary Doctor of Laws, University of Essex (2009)
Academic background
Education	University of Melbourne (LLB) University of California, Berkeley (LLM)

Philip Geoffrey Alston AO is an Australian international law scholar and human rights practitioner. He is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, and co-chair of the law school's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. In human rights law, Alston has held a range of senior UN appointments for over two decades, including United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, a position he held from August 2004 to July 2010, and UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights from 2014-2020. ^[1]

Background

Alston was a resident at Ormond College and graduated from the University of Melbourne with an LL.B.(Hons.) in 1972 and from the University of California, Berkeley with an LL.M. in 1976 ^[2] and a JSD (Doctor of Juridical Science) in 1980. ^[2]

His brother is the former Australian federal Cabinet minister and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Richard Alston.

Career

Alston's first academic appointments were at Tufts University (1985–89) and Harvard Law School (1984–89). Alston was then professor at the Australian National University (1990–95), and also director of its Center for International and Public Law. He was then professor at the European University Institute (1996–2001), before moving to New York University School of Law, where he is the John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law and co-chair of the law school's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. He became a faculty instructor in the NYU Law Institute for Executive Education, which was launched in 2015. ^[2]

United Nations

In human rights law, Alston has held a range of senior UN appointments for over two decades. From 1986 to 1991 he was the first Rapporteur for the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; he then chaired the committee from 1991 to 1998. ^[3]

At the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights he was elected to chair the first meeting of the presidents and Chairs of all of the international human rights courts and committees (including the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Human Rights Court, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, and the UN Human Rights Committee).

He was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General in 1988 to suggest reforms to make the United Nations human rights treaty monitoring system more effective. His major reports in 1989, 1993, and 1997 provided the impetus for continuing efforts by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Council to streamline and improve the rather unwieldy monitoring system.^{[ citation needed ]}

His other United Nations appointments include Special Adviser to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Millennium Development Goals. He was appointed to that post by Sergio Vieira de Mello, and has continued to advise successor High Commissioners, including Louise Arbour and Navanethem Pillay. ^{[ citation needed ]}

Special rapporteur

On extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions

From August 2004 – July 2010 he was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. ^[4]

On extreme poverty and human rights

In 2014, Alston became UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, a position established by the OHCHR in 1998 and later transferred to the Human Rights Council in 2006. The mandate aims to raise awareness of extreme poverty and highlight the human rights violations faced by those living in such conditions. ^[4]

In May 2015, Alston submitted his first report to the Human Rights Council in his capacity as Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty Alston's 2015 report linked extreme poverty to extreme inequality, showing how inequality undermines human rights and perpetuates discrimination. He proposed an agenda including reducing inequality, prioritizing economic and social rights, recognizing social protection rights, implementing redistributive fiscal policies, and centering resource redistribution in human rights discussions. ^[5]

In October 2016, Alston condemned the UN's refusal to accept responsibility for the 2010 Haiti cholera outbreak caused by infected Nepalese peacekeepers, calling it a "disgrace" that undermines the UN's credibility in holding others accountable for human rights violations. He criticized the UN's Office of Legal Affairs for advising denial of responsibility—possibly under U.S. pressure—despite the UN's immunity from lawsuits, and warned this denial would hamper fundraising for the $400 million relief package. Alston urged advocacy groups to continue pressuring UN Member States to ensure accountability. ^{[6] [7]}

In 2017, Alston investigated systemic poverty in the United States, noting that despite the country's great wealth, significant poverty and inequality exist. His investigation examined how poverty affects civil and political rights, focusing on the criminal justice system, welfare, healthcare, political participation barriers, homelessness, and basic social rights including housing, water, and sanitation. The investigation coincided with a November 2017 report revealing a hookworm outbreak in Alabama, a disease associated with extreme poverty. ^[8]

During his November 2017 U.S. investigation, Alston documented extreme poverty conditions including raw sewage flowing from homes in Butler County, Alabama, and visited Los Angeles's Skid Row, which he described as "50 blocks of concentrated human humiliation." His investigation spanned areas in California, Alabama, Georgia, Puerto Rico, Washington D.C., and West Virginia, coinciding with reports of hookworm—a disease of extreme poverty previously thought eradicated in the 1930s—reemerging in Alabama. ^{[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]}

In autumn 2018, Alston did a two-week fact-finding tour of the United Kingdom where he met with people living in poverty, spoke with In autumn 2018, Alston conducted a two-week fact-finding tour of the UK, concluding that nearly half of the nation's children living in poverty was "a disgrace" and "social calamity," criticizing the government's approach as "radical social re-engineering" rather than sound economics, and warning that the poor should not bear the largest burden of Brexit's financial costs. ^{[15] [16]}

Alston concluded that UK austerity measures caused "great misery" with approximately 14 million people (one in five) experiencing poverty and 1.5 million unable to afford basic essentials, citing evidence of increased food bank use, homelessness, and predictions of child poverty potentially reaching 40% by 2022. He stated the government had abandoned compassion and dismantled key parts of the postwar social contract established by William Beveridge over 70 years ago. ^{[17] [18]}

As special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, he received support from the New York University School of law which received to this end several grants from the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations. ^[19]

Other

Alston also directed a project funded by the European Commission, which resulted in the publication of a Human Rights Agenda for the European Union for the Year 2000 and a 1999 volume of essays (The European Union and Human Rights). Many of its recommendations were subsequently implemented by the European Commission and the European Council. He also is one of 29 signatories to the Yogyakarta Principles. ^[20]

Alston was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for "distinguished service to the law, particularly in the area of international human rights, and to legal education" in the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours. ^[21]

Publications

Alston has written on issues such as economic, social and cultural rights, United Nations institutions and procedures, labour rights, the role of non-state actors in relation to human rights, comparative bills of rights, the use of force, and human rights and development policies. He is also one of the authors of a textbook in the field entitled International Human Rights in Context, Law, Politics, Morals, published by Oxford University Press. A third edition was published in 2007.

In a 2017 article in the Journal of Human Rights Practice , faced with the rise of populism, Alston called for a reframing of "economic and social rights as human rights rather than as welfare or development objectives." He also called on academics, those who are anti- and pro- human rights, to pay attention to the "unintended consequences of their scholarship." ^[22]

His 2019 article with Bassam Khawaja and Rebecca Riddell, "Much Ado About Poverty," provided a behind the scenes account of the role of a UN Special Rapporteur, "in investigating and evaluating the situation of people in poverty in a wide range of countries." ^[23]

References

1. "Extreme Poverty and Human Rights". Extreme Poverty and Human Rights. Retrieved 10 July 2019.
2. "Philip Alston". Faculty Profile. New York: New York University School of Law (NYU Law). 2015. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
3. "OHCHR | Membership". OHCHR. Retrieved 9 August 2022.
4. "Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights". OHCHR. nd. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
5. Alston, Philip (May 2015). Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston (PDF) (Report). OHCHR. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
6. Quinn, Ben (25 October 2016). "UN's own expert calls its actions over Haiti cholera outbreak 'a disgrace'". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 December 2017. Human rights special rapporteur says UN's refusal to accept responsibility for 2010 outbreak 'makes a mockery' of efforts to hold others to account
7. Statement by Philip Alston Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights (PDF) (Report). 71st session of the General Assembly Third Committee Item. New York: OHCHR. May 2015. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
8. "UN expert on extreme poverty and human rights to visit USA, one of the wealthiest countries in the world". Geneva. United Nations Office of the High Commissioner Human Rights (OHCHR). 29 November 2017. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
9. McKenna, Megan L.; McAtee, Shannon; Bryan, Patricia E.; Jeun, Rebecca; Ward, Tabitha; Kraus, Jacob; Bottazzi, Maria E.; Hotez, Peter J.; Flowers, Catherine C.; Mejia, Rojelio (November 2017). "Human Intestinal Parasite Burden and Poor Sanitation in Rural Alabama". The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 97 (5). The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene: 1623–1628. doi:10.4269/ajtmh.17-0396. ISSN   0002-9637. PMC   5817782 . PMID   29016326.
10. "Neglected Tropical Diseases". cdc.gov. 6 June 2011. Archived from the original on 4 December 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
11. Pilkington, Ed (5 September 2017). "Hookworm, a disease of extreme poverty, is thriving in the US south. Why?: in America, the world's richest country, hookworm, a parasitic disease found in areas of extreme poverty, is rampant, the first study of its kind in modern times shows". The Guardian . Lowndes County, Alabama . Retrieved 11 December 2017.
12. Wallace, Barbara; Kirkley, James; McGuire, Thomas; Austin, Diane; Goldfield, David (April 2001). Assessment of Historical, Social, and Economic Impacts of OCS Development on Gulf Coast Communities (PDF) (Report). New Orleans: U.S. Department of the Interior. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 December 2017. Retrieved 11 December 2017– via BOEM.
13. Ballesteros, Carlos (10 December 2017). "Alabama has the Worst Poverty in the Developed World, U.N. Official says". Newsweek. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
14. Pilkington, Ed (27 June 2017). "A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
15. Chakrabortty, Aditya (16 November 2018), "The epitaph for Tory austerity has been written, and it's damning", The Guardian, retrieved 16 November 2018
16. Alston, Philip (16 November 2018), Statement on Visit to the United Kingdom, by Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights (PDF)
17. Hitchings-Hales, James (23 May 2019). "Poverty in Britain Is 'Systematic' With 'Tragic Consequences': UN Expert". Global Citizen. Retrieved 8 July 2024.
18. UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says The Guardian
19. "The 'scandal' of foundation support for UN human rights Special Procedures, a response, by Grégor Puppinck". 3 September 2021.
20. Signatories to the Yogyakarta Principles, p. 35
21. "Professor Philip Geoffrey Alston". It's An Honour. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
22. Alston, Philip (1 February 2017), "The Populist Challenge to Human Rights", Journal of Human Rights Practice, 9 (1): 1–15, doi: 10.1093/jhuman/hux007 , retrieved 12 December 2017, The nationalistic, xenophobic, misogynistic, and explicitly anti-human rights agenda of many populist political leaders requires human rights proponents to rethink many longstanding assumptions...Amongst the challenges are the need to...to embrace and assert economic and social rights as human rights rather than as welfare or development objectives. It will be crucial to engage with issues of resources and redistribution, including budgets, tax policy, and fiscal policies. There is a need for collaboration with a broader range of actors, to be more persuasive and less didactic, and to be prepared to break with some of the old certainties. Academics should pay attention to the unintended consequences of their scholarship, and everyone in the human rights movement needs to reflect on the contributions each can make.
23. Alston, Philip; Khawaja, Bassam; Riddell, Rebecca (30 July 2019). "Much Ado About Poverty: The Role of a UN Special Rapporteur". NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 19-31. Rochester, NY. SSRN   3429230.

External links

• Philip Alston: Record AfPak Drone Attacks Under Obama May Violate International Law – video report by Democracy Now!
• Project on Extrajudicial Executions, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York University School of Law
• NYU Law launches Institute for Executive Education, NYU Law Institute for Executive Education, New York University School of Law
• Q&A: U.N.'s poverty and human rights special rapporteur finds U.S. policies reward wealthy, punish poor. Interview in the Los Angeles Times , June 2, 2018.
• Philip Alston - Contributor profile, EJIL: Talk!