Professor Paul Gready
Co-Director of the Centre for Applied Human Rights

Profile

Biography

Paul Gready is the Director of the Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR) and holds a UNESCO Chair on Protecting Human Rights Defenders and the Expansion of Political Space.  

At around the same time as Paul started working at CAHR, in 2007, he helped to establish the Journal of Human Rights Practice, where he is still a co-editor. For over three decades he has sought to strengthen interdisciplinarity in human rights practice, through both teaching and various research-related activities. Prior to entering the academy he worked for Amnesty International (on East and Southern Africa, and India), and for a number of other international and national human rights organisations.

At CAHR, Paul has led two strands of activity which combine teaching, research and activism. The first, drawing on the Centre’s Protective Fellowship Scheme for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, now focuses on universities as sites of activism and protection in support of human rights defenders, and civil society more broadly, under the auspices of his UNESCO Chair. The second placed CAHR at the heart of the campaign for York to become the UK’s first Human Rights City in 2017. Paul is a member of the Executive of the civil society-led York Human Rights City Network (YHRCN) and co-Chair’s the city’s Human Rights and Equalities Board (HREB). 

Teaching

Postgraduate

Paul teaches on Defending Human Rights and he coordinates the field trip to South Africa.

In the Autumn term Paul convenes Social Sciences and Human Rights Practice. In the Spring term Paul convenes Culture and Protest.

Research

Overview

Research 

Paul is a social scientist with research interests in universities as sites of activism and protection, human rights practice, transitional and transformative justice, the arts and human rights, and human rights cities. He leads two collaborative and interdisciplinary research projects:

• UNESCO Chair, which with a global network of universities, NGOs and other partners, supports research, training and capacity building, and knowledge exchange and network building relating to universities as sites of activism and protection. The Chair’s activities are funded by the Open Society Foundations. 
• Art Rights Truth: This Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project explores whether collaborations between artists and activists can help shape new languages for, and approaches to, human rights in the context of multiple contemporary crises. The project case studies are Covid legacies, social and environmental justice, transitional justice and its aftermaths (Canada, Colombia), and human rights in local settings (York). 

Supervision

Paul is happy to consider supervising PhDs on the following topics:

• Universities as sites of activism and protection
• Arts and human rights activism
• Transitional and transformative justice
• Human rights cities

Publications

Selected publications

Recent publications:

2023. “Universities as Sites of Activism and Protection”, Paul Gready and Emma Jackson, Working Paper No. 14, Human Rights Defender Hub Working Paper Series, Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York.

2023. “Transitional Justice as a Driver of Transformation in Colombia”, Paul Gready, et al. (CAPAZ - Instituto Colombo-Alemán par la Paz), Policy Brief 6.

2023. Transitional Justice in Tunisia: Innovations, Continuities, Challenges, eds. S. Robins and P. Gready, Routledge. 

2022. “Transitional Justice from the Margins: Collective Reparations and Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission”, Paul Gready, Simon Robins, and others, Political Geography 94. 

Select other publications:

2020. “Transitional Justice and Theories of Change: Towards Evaluation as Understanding”, Paul Gready and Simon Robins, International Journal of Transitional Justice, 14/2, 280-99.

2019. “Rethinking Human Rights in York as a Human Rights City”, Paul Gready and Liz Lockey, Political Quarterly, 90/3, 383-92. 

2019. “Reflections on a Human Rights Decade, Near and Far”, Journal of Human Rights Practice, 11/2, 422-37. 

2018. From Transitional to Transformative Justice, eds. P. Gready and S. Robins, Cambridge University Press.

2014. “From Transitional to Transformative Justice: An Agenda for Practice”, Paul Gready and Simon Robins, International Journal of Transitional Justice 8/3, 339-6. 

External activities

Memberships

Currently a Trustee of International Service and Adviser to Silence Speaks at the Center for Digital Storytelling. Previously served on the Board of Child Soldiers International.

Editorial duties

Co-editor of the Journal of Human Rights Practice. Regular reviewer of articles for other journals in the fields of human rights, conflict, transitional justice and development.