Jurist Michael Kirby Sharing the Gruber Justice Prize

It is so important to have role models in our world that reflect integrity, justice and principles. Those who remind people of why justice is real and not ‘seen to be done’. To enable people to believe in their society and to feel that the very foundation of that society is fairness, and in the case of former High Court Justice Michael Kirby, love.

Human rights for me, has always been the right to be human. To allow freedom of expression and to walk the path as nature intended. I am learning at a deep level what it means to not judge but to be just. One is nurture the other nature. I see myself looking at the finger of blame with 3 fingers pointing to me and one to the other. Thus justice occurs within me. I am returning to my true nature, where all the world is my family. I learn to live with difference in order to live peace, or indeed truth. For they are one in the same.

Below they speak of the Nobel Prize, but I would like to see it changed to the Noble Prize. Perhaps that could be for our children.

So I felt to post this overview of Michael Kirby a famous Australian former High Court Justice who is world renowned for his integrity and depth.

http://www.michaelkirby.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=104:australian-jurist-michael-kirby-named-co-winner-of-gruber-justice-prize&catid=1:general&Itemid=100
Australian Jurist Michael Kirby Named Co-Winner of Gruber Justice Prize

NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY

Michael Kirby, retired judge of the High Court of Australia, was today named as the co-winner of the Gruber Justice Prize for 2010. The announcement was made in New York by the Gruber Foundation, a philanthropic organisation that awards the Gruber Prizes annually.

Michael Kirby is the first Australian to win the Gruber Justice Prize, although other Australians have previously been named as winners of Gruber Prizes in the field of science. These have included Professor Elizabeth Blackburn who won the Gruber Prize for Genetics in 2006 and who was named in 2009 as co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Psychology/Medicine for her discovery of telemerase. Professor Blackburn is one of a number of Gruber Prize winners who have later gone on to be awarded the Nobel Prize. There is no Nobel Prize for Law or Justice.

Each Gruber Prize is valued at $US500,000. It is awarded annually by an independent jury which ordinarily includes previous Gruber Prize winners. The jury that selected the 2010 Justice Prize winners was chaired by Justice Arthur Chaskalson, a past Chief Justice of South Africa. He was himself a co-winner of the Gruber Justice Prize in 2004. He played a leading role in the transition of the legal system of South Africa from the apartheid regime to multi-party democracy. The jury’s award of the 2010 Gruber Justice Prize was unanimous.

Co-winners of the 2010 Justice Prize

Michael Kirby will share his 2010 Gruber Justice Prize with two co-winners. These are:

Professor John Dugard of South Africa, who played a key role in drafting the human rights protections in the post-apartheid South African Constitution; and

The Indian Law Resource Center, an organisation established in the United States to promote the use of law to champion the legal interests of indigenous people in the United States and Latin America. The Center was a leading actor in securing the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2008.

Gruber Prizes are awarded to the recipients without preconditions. A ceremony to confer the Prize and to present a medal and a citation to the winners will be held at the George Washington University in Washington DC on Monday October 11, 2010.

On the announcement of the award to him of the Gruber Justice Prize, Michael Kirby said that he was proud to be named. He said: “I am conscious of the many people with whom I have worked over the years on human rights and justice who are equally deserving of recognition”. He went on: “There is also probably a need for a special Gruber Prize for the spouses and partners of Gruber Prize winners. My partner of 41 years, Johan van Vloten, definitely deserves a Prize for putting up with me. Probably the Victoria Cross”, Michael Kirby said.
Michael Kirby’s career

Until February 2009, Michael Kirby was a Justice of the High Court of Australia and Australia’s longest serving judge. He had held office successively as a Deputy President of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission (1975-83), as inaugural Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission (1975-84), as a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia (1983-4), as President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal (1984-96), and as a Justice of the High Court of Australia (1996-2009). He also served as President of the Court of Appeal of Solomon Islands (1995-6). For his service to law and law reform, he received Australian civil honours, including appointment as a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (1983) and a Companion of the Order of Australia (1991). In 1991, he was named winner of the Australian Human Rights Medal and in 2009, he won the inaugural Australian Privacy Medal.

It is for work overseas and internationally that Michael Kirby is mostly known outside Australia. During thirty years, he has been engaged in projects for international bodies, including the OECD in Paris, the Commonwealth Secretariat in London and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva. He chaired the Executive Committee of the ICJ (1993-95); and in 1995, he was elected President of the ICJ, a post he held until 1998. These international activities were referred to by the Gruber Justice Prize jury in awarding the Justice Prize to Michael Kirby.

Mr. Kirby has also participated in the work of many United Nations agencies, including the World Health Organisation Global Commission on AIDS (1986-9), the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO (1996-2005) and as independent co-chairman of the Malawi Constitutional Conference (1994). That conference helped pave the way to multi-party democracy in Malawi, replacing the previous life presidency of the initial president, Dr. Hastings Banda.

In 1993, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali appointed Michael Kirby as UN Special Representative for Human Rights in Cambodia. In public speeches in Australia and elsewhere, Michael Kirby has said that his work in Cambodia, in helping against some political opposition to secure recognition of HIV/AIDS as a human rights issue, was possibly the most important and practical thing he had done for upholding human rights for ordinary people.
Michael Kirby presently serves in a number of UN posts, including:

As a member of the UNAIDS Panel on Human Rights, advising the Joint UN Programme on AIDS on the human rights implications of global AIDS strategies;
As rapporteur of the Judicial Integrity Group of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, preparing guidelines to uphold judicial integrity and to respond effectively to official corruption throughout the world; and
In April 2010, UNDP head and former New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark, named Michael Kirby as a member of a new Global Commission on HIV and the Law. This has been established to help the United Nations respond to the spread of laws which increase stigma and discrimination and reduce the effectiveness of responses to the spread of AIDS. Such laws have recently been criticised in the Parliament of Malawi by UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon.

Post-retirement activities

Since Michael Kirby’s retirement from the High Court of Australia on February 6, 2009, he has increased his engagement with international human rights bodies. According to a spokesperson for his office, Judith Lord, upcoming activities in which Michael Kirby is presently engaged include:

A session in New York at the time of the announcement of the Gruber Justice Prize, where he is chairing the Technical Assistance Group established to support the new UNDP Global Commission on HIV and the Law (June 17-20, 2010);

Meetings in Colombo, Sri Lanka for UNAIDS and the Weeramantry Foundation on July 20-23, 2010. Whilst in Sri Lanka, Mr. Kirby will receive an Honorary Doctorate of Laws degree from the University of Colombo;

Meetings of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association in Vancouver (October 4-6, 2010). The Institute is considering new frontiers of global human rights, including recognition of the role that global poverty plays in the denial of basic human rights and addressing the denial of human rights to gays and other sexual minorities throughout the world; and

A meeting of the Hague Institute for Internationalisation of Law of which he is a board member (November 17-19, 2010). This is concerned with the growing influence of international law and the ‘democratic deficit’ commonly involved in international legal regulation.

In addition to participation in international meetings and commissions, Michael Kirby served for a year until June 5, 2010, as President of the Institute of Arbitrators & Mediators Australia. He is also an Honorary Professor at ten Australian universities.

Asked whether, with the award of the Gruber Justice Prize, he would be slowing down, Michael Kirby said: “No way. This Prize will encourage me to engage with new areas of justice and human rights”. “When I was young, very few Australians recognised the human rights implications of our policies towards Aboriginals, White Australia, women and gays. We have made progress. But there are new frontiers to address. At home, these include persuading Australians to join the rest of the world in adopting a national human rights charter”. On a global level, he suggested that “the links between human rights and the environment and issues of animal welfare would play a greater part in the human rights debates in the future”.

Michael Kirby was the first judge of any final national court in the world who was open about his homosexuality and his long-term relationship with his partner, Johan van Vloten. He was involved in work concerned with the AIDS epidemic after 1986 and included reference to his partner in the 1999 issue of Australian Who’s Who.