A Fond Farewell to Professor Kate O’Regan
As we look ahead to the beginning of Michaelmas Term, we also prepare say goodbye to our inaugural Director, Professor Kate O’Regan, who will be stepping down from her role and retiring this autumn.
Kate has led the Bonavero Institute since its inception, shaping it with extraordinary vision, integrity, and purpose. Under her leadership, the Institute has grown into a globally recognised centre for human rights research, teaching, and public engagement.
She will be succeeded by Professor Rachel Murray, who joins us from the University of Bristol, where she is Professor of International Human Rights Law. We warmly welcome Rachel and look forward to this next chapter in the Institute’s development.
In celebration of Kate’s leadership and legacy, we invited a few of the many individuals she has collaborated with over the course of her directorship to share their reflections. Read tributes from Yves Bonavero, Baroness Helena Kennedy KC, Professor John Armour, Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford and Professor Anne Davies below.
We thank Kate for her vision, commitment, energy and passion and wish her all the best for her retirement.
Recollections of Kate O’Regan
Yves Bonavero
If the Bonavero Institute, barely ten years after its foundation, is widely recognised as a world-class institution in human rights research, it is largely thanks to the leadership of its distinguished inaugural director, Professor Kate O’Regan.
Thanks to her unique credentials and prior association with the Oxford Law Faculty, Kate hit the ground running, and soon had a clear strategy in place, as well as a strong and dedicated team to implement it. Policy-relevant research into modern slavery, civil liability, climate litigation, artificial intelligence, as well as innovative scholarly outputs including authoritative reports, handbooks and thematic publications, attest to the productivity of the Institute. For many Oxford students, the Institute has become a place to deepen their understanding of human rights law and practice. For overseas academic visitors and legal practitioners, it has been a nurturing and stimulating community, where they could sharpen their skills and recharge.
As Kate, much to the regret of all her colleagues, prepares to retire, democracy, human rights and the rule of law are under attack worldwide. We are in her debt for leaving behind a beacon of hope – an Institute that is a global thought leader in human rights scholarship, producing pioneering research, influencing legal reform, and defending human rights through public engagement and scholarly recognition.
Beyond this outstanding achievement, Kate will also be remembered for the warmth and kindness that soon turned colleagues into friends. I’m proud and honoured to count myself among the most thankful of them.
Finally, I’m delighted to welcome Professor Rachel Murray as Director of the Bonavero Institute. I look forward to working with her and the Law Faculty to build on Kate’s tremendous legacy.
Capturing the brilliant Kate O'Regan
Baroness Helena Kennedy QC
Creating the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights was a driving ambition for me when I came to Oxford as Principal of Mansfield College back in 2011. It combined using the last significant piece of land within the college to build additional housing for our terrific students with the opportunity to establish at Oxford a leading academic Institute for research into human rights and international law. To me the Institute would be the perfect expression of the values of the college and would embed this important strand of law more deeply into the Oxford offer to the world. Raising the funds – all of £25million – was a real challenge and wooing the powers-that-be in Oxford to the proposal was not easy either but I am a woman from Glasgow and not easily daunted.
I always knew that finding the right inaugural Director would be fundamental to the project’s success. It had to be someone with great leadership qualities, a respected scholar who had practical experience of using law to confront human rights abuses but also someone who had rich experience in wider aspects of law. I wanted someone who would reach the exacting standards of this great University but someone who brought the outside world in and who would be innovative without totally frightening the horses.
I had great difficulty thinking of the perfect candidate for this crucial role but suddenly fate took a hand. On a visit to the UN General Assembly in New York I heard that the formidable Justice Kate O’Regan had completed her 15 years as a judge on the Constitutional Court of South Africa and was doing a short piece of legal work on behalf of Kofi Annan. I could hardly contain my excitement. And she was still so young!
I had met Kate some years earlier in South Africa through our mutual friend Justice Albie Sachs. She had hosted a dinner for me with terrific African women judges, and we had enjoyed a very lively legal discussion about women’s rights. I knew immediately that she was perfect. There could surely be no donnish sniff at the credentials of this extraordinary woman! I secured her number and phoned her in South Africa. By chance she was just about to come to London to give a Lecture, and I invited her to lunch at the Wolsley. If you are headhunting, you must always do it in an expensive restaurant. My advocacy somehow worked and Kate applied for the job and the rest, as they say, is history.
The appointment of Kate O’Regan to lead the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights is a source of pride for everyone who has worked with the Institute and witnessed the growth of its reputation globally. She has built enduring relationships within the University and far beyond, partnering with many global institutions and professionals. Her grace and intellect have won the day. She has with great acuity identified complex issues of law which deserve serious scholarship and legal research and she has put together teams of academics who have delivered exceptional analysis and reports. If we are to create peace and justice in our fractured world there is much to do and Kate’s contribution has been considerable. We have been so lucky. All my good wishes go with her as she embarks on the next chapters of her precious life. Kate, thank you from my heart.
Anne Davis, Professor of Law and Public Policy, Faculty of Law, Oxford University
Kate has done a fantastic job in turning the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights from idea to reality. Although there were some plans in place prior to her appointment, she has effectively set the Institute up from scratch: setting its strategic direction, developing plans and policies, hiring staff, raising funds and publicising its work. This has involved dealing with a range of issues from deep questions about how to focus the Institute’s work among the many profoundly troubling human rights challenges the world currently faces, to grappling with the mysteries of the university’s financial rules. Kate has tackled all of this with wisdom, grace and good humour and we owe her a huge debt of gratitude for the flourishing Institute she leaves behind.
Professor John Armour, Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford
Kate has made an extraordinary contribution to the life of our Faculty, and to the progress of human rights law. She was appointed in 2016 as the founding Director for the Bonavero Institute. She oversaw the completion of its building project; the recruitment of core personnel, including the Head of Research, the Head of Programmes, the Institute Administrator and a range of other staff, now numbering 24 FTE; the physical opening of the Institute in October 2017 and its formal opening by Kofi Annan on 15 June 2018; the development of the Bonavero’s Strategy (two iterations), its research agenda, and its culture; and the buildup of a remarkable array of grant funded projects and supported the development of many early career scholars working on these. Kate also expertly navigated the Bonavero Institute’s relationships with the Faculty and Mansfield College; the integration into the Faculty and the Institute of the MSc and the Summer School in International Human Right Law; and the launch of a range of practical impact programmes, including the Price Moot Court Competition, the Huntercombe Prison Clinic and the Summer Student Fellowship programme. Kate had also contributed the benefit of her wisdom and energy to the wider Faculty’s governance including through serving on the Law Faculty Board and other important committees. It has been a great pleasure for me to work with Kate, and I personally have benefited from her wisdom. I wish her and Alec a very happy retirement.