School of Law

Staff

Biography
Rory O’Connell has been a member of the Human Rights Centre, School of Law since 2001. Rory’s research and teaching interests are in the areas of Human Rights and Equality, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory. His publications include Legal Theory in the Crucible of Constitutional Justice (2000) and articles in Ratio Juris, the International Journal of Constitutional Law and other journals. Several of his research projects have been supported by grants from the British Academy, Nuffield Foundation and Changing Aging Partnership.

Rory is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. He teaches on the Masters LL.M. Programme in Human Rights,  and is actively involved in PhD supervision. He has also taught on human rights training programmes organised by the Human Rights Centre.

Rory studied law at University College Dublin, thanks to a scholarship. During his degree, he spent a year as an ERASMUS student at the Université de Rouen. In 1992, he graduated with a Bachelor of Civil Law degree (First Class) and received a UCD Open Postgraduate scholarship. He proceeded to write an LL.M. by thesis on The Irish Courts and Equality Before the Law, graduating in 1994, with First Class honours. He moved to the European University Institute, Florence to undertake a PhD on the theory of constitutional interpretation, studying the influence of political morality in judicial decision-making in Canada, Ireland and Italy. He graduated from the EUI in 1997, with Distinction. Rory’s first lecturing post was in Comparative Law at Lancaster University Law School, where he was responsible for Lancaster’s Law with Language programmes from 1997 to 2001.

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Human Rights
• Constitutional Law
  
  Postgraduate

• Human Rights and Governance
• Equality Law

Research

Human Rights Theory; Equality Provisions in Comparative Constitutional Law; Human Rights and Deliberative Democracy

Selected Publications

"The Role of Dignity in Equality Law: Lessons from Canada and South Africa" (2008) (2) International Journal of Constitutional Law 267-286. >> More

"The Right to Participation of Minorities and Irish Travellers" (2006) 6 (3) Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 2-30 >> More

"Towards a Stronger Conception of Democracy in the Strasbourg Convention" (2006) European Human Rights Law Review 281-293 >> More

"Do We Need Unicorns When We Have Law?" (2005) 18 (4) Ratio Juris 484-503 >> More

Legal Theory in the Crucible of Constitutional Justice (2000) Dartmouth: Ashgate >> More

"Theories of Religious Education in Ireland" (1999-2000) 14 American Journal of Law and Religion 433-523 >> More

"The European Convention and the Relative Rights of Resident Aliens"  (with Ruth Rubio Marin) (1999) 5 European Law Journal 5-22 >> More

"Natural Law: Alive and Kicking? A Look at the Constitutional Morality of Sexual Privacy in Ireland" (1996) 9 (3) Ratio Juris 258-282 >> More

"Guardians of the Constitution: Unconstitutional Constitutional Norms" (1999) 4 Journal of Civil Liberties 48-75 >> More

"Let's Talk: Dealing with Difference in Human Rights Law" in The Tension Between Group Rights and Human Rights: A Multidisciplinary Approach Edited by Koen De Feyter and George Pavlakos (Oxford: Hart, 2008) >>More

View complete list of Rory O’Connell’s publications.

Administration

• Director of the Utrecht Network / UNDIAC Summer School on Minorities and Participation, August 2008
• Postgraduate examinations officer, September 2006 - 2007
• Director of the LL.M. programmes in Human Rights,  2004 - 2007
• Belfast Director of the European Masters Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation (EMA), based at the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights in Venice, September 2004 - September 2007
• Assistant Director of the QUB Human Rights Centre, September 2002- January 2005
• Advisor of Studies to the Law with Languages students, September 2001- September 2004
• Adviser to Socrates/Erasmus students, September 2001-September 2002.