Claire O'Brien
Claire O'Brien is a third year doctoral candidate in the Law Department at the European University Institute, Florence.
Her doctoral research project considers alternative approaches to the regulation of multinational corporations' human rights impacts, drawing on analyses of transnational law, compliance and enforcement in the European Union and global private law regimes. She is a participant in the European Commission's Sixth Framework integrated project, Reconstituting Democracy in Europe http://www.reconproject.eu/.
Prior to commencing doctoral study, Ms. O'Brien was Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights of the London School of Economics, where her work concerned the integration of national-level equality and human rights institutions and the design of the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights. She has published extensively on the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into U.K. domestic law, and is a contributing author to the Second Edition of Grosz, Beatson and Duffy on Human Rights (2007, forthcoming, London: Sweet & Maxwell).
Ms. O'Brien's further current research interests include reform of the United Nations human rights protection system. She recently published (with Michael O'Flaherty), "Reform of UN Human Rights Treaty Monitoring Bodies: A Critique of the Concept Paper on the High Commissioner's Proposal for a Unified Standing Treaty Body", (2007) Human Rights Law Review 7(1), 141-172.
Ms. O'Brien is a Barrister of the Middle Temple, London. She holds an LL. M. (Public Law) from the London School of Economics and M.A. (Hons.) in Philosophy from Queens' College, Cambridge.