Castan Centre for Human Rights Law

The Castan Centre for Human Rights Law is a research centre located within the Monash University Law Faculty in Victoria, Australia. It was established in 2000 to meet the need for, and interest in, the study of human rights law globally, regionally and in Australia. It grew rapidly to become the largest research centre in the Monash Law School. It is the preeminent human rights centre in the Asia-Pacific region, and is one of Australia's most respected human rights monitoring organisations. Its function is to bring together the work of national and international human rights scholars, practitioners and advocates from a wide range of disciplines in order to promote and protect human rights.

The Centre is named after Ron Castan AM, QC (1939-1999), a distinguished barrister who was a prominent advocate of human rights. His daughter, Melissa Castan, is Deputy Director of the Centre.

The Centre's main activities are research, teaching, public education (lectures, seminars, conferences, parliamentary submissions, internships and media presentations), applied research, advice work, policy work and consultancies.

In teaching, it offers Australia's only Master of Laws in Human Rights. In collaboration with law firm Holding Redlich, it runs the Holding Redlich Distinguished Visiting Fellowship Program, which attracts human rights experts from around the world to give public lectures on key human rights issues. Recent Fellows include Justice Richard Goldstone (2009), Justice Thomas Buergenthal (2009), Kirsty Sword Gusmão (2008) and Professor Peter Russell (2006). Additionally, Monash students and staff and the general public enjoy regular lectures by prominent human rights academics and advocates hosted by the Centre, with recent guest speakers including prominent barrister Julian Burnside QC, East Timor President Dr José Ramos-Horta, the Dalai Lama, former British first lady Cherie Booth QC, Indigenous Australians Senator Aden Ridgeway and Noel Pearson, former Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer MP and Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd MP. The Centre administers numerous student internships enabling Monash undergraduate students to work at the United Nations Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Khmer Rouge trials.

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