The Special Rapporteur
Gerard Quinn was appointed the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities by the Human Rights Council at its 45th session, in October 2020.
He holds two research chairs at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute on Human Rights in the University of Lund (Sweden) and Leeds University (UK). .
A graduate of Harvard Law School, the King's Inns (Dublin) and the National University of Ireland, he formerly held a chair at the National University of Ireland where he founded and directed the Centre on Disability Law & Policy.
In Ireland, he served as a member of the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities (1992-1996), which produced an early blueprint for change in Ireland based on equality. He was Director of Research at the Government's Law Reform Commission from 1997 to 1998, and later served in the Irish Government Taskforce on the individualization of budgets and services (2017-2018). He served two terms on Irelands’ Human Rights Commission, and he served on Ireland’s Council of State from January 2012-2018.
Mr. Quinn was the lead ‘focal point’ for the global network of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) during much of the negotiation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He served as First Vice-President of the European Committee on Social Rights, where he helped develop its jurisprudence on the rights of persons with disabilities and older persons.
