The death has been announced of Prof. Kevin Boyle yesterday. Educated at QUB and Cambridge, Kevin Boyle was one of of the most influential scholars in human rights to come from Ireland and, indeed, to write and practice in Europe over recent decades. His work has always embraced the importance of taking multiple perspectives on human rights, and has spanned a huge array of subjects from Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland: The Choice, 2004, with Tom Hadden) to Africa (Human Rights and Democracy: The Role of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt, 1996, ed with Adel Omar Sherif) and very influential works on freedom of religious belief and minority rights.
Professor Boyle was the founding director of NUI Galway’s Irish Centre for Human Rights, special advisor to Mary Robinson during her tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, director of the Human Rights Centre in the University of Essex, and a practising barrister with Doughty Street Chambers (UK Human Rights Lawyer of the Year, 1998). He was an influential member of the executive of the Irish Association of Law Teachers early in its existence and was awarded honourary membership at the IALT conference in Limerick last month.
He is a great loss to the Irish academy, the human rights community, and of course his friends, colleagues and family. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.
Kevin was a fantastic academic and a strikingly kind person. He will be greatly missed.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.
Mary Robinson signed into law on amendment 16 to the Irish Constitution the illegal use of opinions.The only use for opinions in law is to commit crimes and hide the evidence.
Professor Boyle was an adviser to Mary Robinson while Mary Robinson was a United Nation High Commissioner.
Since 1998 successive so called Irish Governments have been systematically stealing from Social Welfare Recipients infringing just about every right to most vulnerable have, who never get protection by law.
Mary Robinson, Professor Boyle, The Irish Human Rights Commission colluded together to destroy the United Nations and this and other sites seem to portray these people as gods. Unbelievable .
Professor Kevin Boyle was a scholar of international renown, an activist of great integrity and boundless stamina and a mentor of immensely positive and affirming influence on generations of Human Rights people. It is sad beyond words that he didn’t get the retirement he so richly earned and deserved. We are all the poorer for that as I imagine it would have been a most illustrious (and busy!) retirement. May he rest in peace.