Moritz Birk
Curriculum Vitae
Key competences
- Research, consulting and training in the areas of prohibition and prevention of torture and ill-treatment and the rights of detainees
- Monitoring of places of detention, including experience in conducting interviews with victims of human rights violations
- Management of a torture prevention project assisting governments and civil society in the implementation recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
- Preparation of reports to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly as well as UN mission reports
- Research and field experience in the area of minority rights and refugee law
- Teaching experience on human rights
Professional record
- Project Officer and Researcher, Team ‘Human Dignity and Public Security’, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, Vienna, Austria
- Legal Researcher; Assistant of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture (2009-2010); Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, Vienna, Austria
- Chairperson of the Jus Humanis International Human Rights Network, Lund, Sweden
- Internship at the UNHCR Berlin, Legal Protection Unit
- Independent researcher at the human rights NGO Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l'Homme (RADDHO) in Dakar, Senegal
- Human rights observations and -investigations in endangered indigenous communities in Chiapas, Mexico (Center for Human Rights Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, CAPISE)
- Internship at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), Accra, Ghana
Education
- Master in International Human Rights Law (Raoul Wallenberg Institute/Lund University, Sweden)
- Master of Laws (Humboldt-University of Berlin, Sorbonne University - Paris 1)
Publications
- Pretrial Detainees and Torture: Why Pretrial Detainees Face the Greatest Risk, Open Society Foundations (together with Julia Kozma, Roland Schmidt, Zoe Oliver Watts, Debra Lang and Elina Steinerte, 2011)
- Nowak/Birk/Crittin - ‘The Obama Administration and Obligations Under the Convention Against Torture’, Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems, a Journal of the University of Iowa College of Law, Volume 20, Number 1, Spring 2011, pp. 33-66
- Nowak/Birk/Crittin/Kozma - ‘Looking Older than the Commission: The UN Human Rights Council in Need of a Facelift’, European Yearbook on Human Rights 2011, European Academic Press, 2011
- UNODC/Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, ‘Human Rights and HIV - Training manual on HIV and human rights for HIV experts of the UNODC’ – to be published
- Assistance to the publications of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture