Brief Biographical Notes

Peter Hosking

Since 1996, barrister Peter Hosking has been Senior Consultant to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Development Programme. He also carries out consultancies for the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NZAID, setting up national human rights institutions and building their capacity. He has worked extensively in the Asia Pacific and the former Soviet Union.

From 1988 until 1996 he was Proceedings Commissioner at the New Zealand Human Rights Commission.

He holds a LLB degree and in 1992 completed a post-graduate Diploma in Corporate Management, graduating top student. In a varied career he has been a solicitor in the law reform division of the Justice Department, the litigation partner in a private law firm and self-employed in orchard management.

He has undertaken extensive community work. He founded the Men's Action Collective in Tauranga which ran living without violence courses for men and education courses on racism, sexism and the Treaty of Waitangi. He has been a member of the Marriage Guidance Council, the Alcohol Advisory Council and has been active in conservation, tenants' protection and human rights NGOs.

He is the author of "Discrimination", a Title in "The Laws of New Zealand", published by Butterworths in 1996.

Margaret Bedggood

Margaret Bedggood is a Professor of Law at the University of Waikato, where she was Dean of the Law School from 1994 to 1999. For five years (1989 - 1994) she was the Chief Commissioner of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, during the passage of the Human Rights Act 1993. She has been a member of Amnesty International since 1968, was previously Chair of the New Zealand section and is now a member of its governing body the nine person International Executive Committee.

She has taught law and classics in a variety of institutions and jurisdictions and has published in tort, employment law and human rights. Margaret is an assistant director of the Te Matahauariki research institute working on a project entitled Laws and Institutions for Aotearoa/New Zealand.

She is a member of the Film and Literature Review Board and of the Refugee Council, and has a long-standing interest in social justice issues within the Anglican Church, as a member of the Third Order of the Society of Saint Francis.

Maria Humphries

Maria Humphries is an Associate Professor at the Waikato Management School. Her academic interests include critical organisation theory and feminist organisation studies. Most recently she has developed post graduate qualifications in the issues that arise for the organisation and management of the community/voluntary/third sector. Maria's interest in Human Rights issues are focussed on the rights to a reasonable income for all and work with Treaty of Waitangi related issues.

Tim McBride

Tim McBride has been actively involved in civil rights issues since the early 1970s as an advocate, barrister, commentator, and lecturer. He is the author of the New Zealand Handbook of Civil Liberties (1973) and The New Zealand Civil Rights Handbook (1980). Tim is also co-author of the leading book on the Privacy Act 1993 – The Privacy Act: A Guide (1994), as well as being the author of two major official reports on privacy – Privacy Review (1984) and Data Privacy: An Options Paper (1987). He is currently the chairperson of the Auckland Council for Civil Liberties and the Legal Information Service Inc.

Kathy Ertel

Kathy Ertel is the Principal of her own Law Firm in Wellington. Kathy has practiced law for the past 14 years after graduating from the University of Otago. She specialises in Treaty of Waitangi litigation and administrative law. She also has a strong interest in the rights of people with disabilities, Maori and Pacific rights and the ways in which those rights can be strengthened by education and legal precedent.

Sue Elliott

Sue Elliott is a development professional with twenty years experience in the areas of: refugees and displaced people; humanitarian aid; NGO and civil society policy, institutional strengthening; gender analysis; human rights, (including children's rights) and education.

She is a long-term member of Amnesty International and was the Founding
Secretary of the Auckland Refugee Council, a position which she held almost continuously until 1996. From 1987 until 1995, she was the Head of the Auckland Institute of Technology's School of Refugee Education at the Mangere Refugee Reception Centre. In recent years, Sue has worked as a consultant to international agencies working to support the NGO sector and civil society, and on refugee and human rights issues. Her work has mainly been in Europe the Former Soviet Union, Post Yugoslav states and the Pacific.

At home, she works mainly on NGO and refugee issues, and continues to support these issues voluntarily.