Title: 

LL.M.

First Name: 

Moritz

Last Name: 

Birk

Position: 

Researcher

Team: 

Human Dignity and Public Security

E-Mail: 

Moritz.Birk@univie.ac.at

Telephone: 

+43 (1) 4277 27426

Address: 

Freyung 6 (Schottenhof), 1. Stiege II, A-1010 Wien

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