Prof. Paul Hunt

In 1998, Paul Hunt - a national of New Zealand - was elected by the UN to serve as an independent expert on the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1999-2002). Between 2001-2, at the request of Mary Robinson, then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, he co-authored draft Guidelines on Human Rights Approaches to Poverty Reduction. Between 2002-2008, he served as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, the first appointment to this new human rights mechanism.

As Special Rapporteur, he endeavoured to help States, and other actors, better promote and protect the right to the highest attainable standard of health. In his work, he focussed in particular on poverty, discrimination and the right to health. An independent expert, he undertook country missions and submitted some thirty reports to the UN General Assembly and UN Commission on Human Rights, now the UN Human Rights Council. Paul has lived, and undertaken human rights work, in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Pacific. In addition to his UN reports, he has written extensively on economic, social and cultural rights, including Reclaiming Social Rights: International and Comparative Perspectives (1996), Culture, Rights and Cultural Rights: Perspectives from the South Pacific (co-ed with Margaret Wilson, 2000), and World Bank, IMF and Human Rights (co-ed, 2003).

He is a Professor in law, and member of the Human Rights Centre, at the University of Essex (England) and Adjunct Professor at the University of Waikato (New Zealand). In 2008, the Nordic School of Public Health awarded Paul an honorary doctorate in recognition of his work on the right to the highest attainable standard of health.