Professor Justine Nolan

Professor Justine Nolan is among the world’s leading business and human rights academics and is based in Australia. She teaches in the Faculty of Law & Justice at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and has been training with DTP’s business and human rights program for more than a decade before joining the DTP’s Board of Directors in 2015. Justine is also the Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW.

Justine enjoys training and learning with and from the participants in DTP courses and notes that the DTP programs are modelled on participatory knowledge exchange.

“DTP training offers spaces for two-way learning. It is not a training model where people sit in a room and just listen to what others say. That’s why DTP training programs are so interesting… you are learning all the time from the people in the room, and it’s very much focused on an exchange of ideas so that we learn from each other and figure out how to do what we each do better. I think this participatory knowledge exchange model is unique to DTP in this space.”

Justine believes DTP’s biggest strength is its growing network of alumni.

“Over time, what’s been striking to me is how much this solid alumni network of DTP has grown and how it is becoming a self-supporting network, where people who’ve gone through programs are reaching out to others and connecting to find out what they’re doing and learning even outside of the training programs”.

Justine’s upbringing in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where she saw the world in a “different way”, vigorous discussion in her family home about world affairs meant she “caught up with the basic idea that we need to understand and recognize the basic dignity of people” from an early age.

Justine has a long record of working in human rights advocacy. She was the Director of the Business and Human Rights program at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First) in the USA in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This was a time when sweatshops and labour rights were attracting more attention, companies were being targeted in advocacy and human rights movements were starting to focus more on legal business and human rights frameworks to challenge prevailing voluntary approaches such as corporate social responsibility.

“I was very motivated by seeing what was happening on the ground, working with companies and communities, particularly in the garment sector and their supply chains. So when I moved to academia, I wanted to continue that practical focus, and I wanted to make sure that the research I do as an academic has a practical benefit and that people are aware that the clothes we wear and the food we eat shouldn’t be off the back of making someone’s life worse.”

DTP offers a space for Justine to translate theory into practice.

“For me, it is important to think about how to create change. That is why I have been working with DTP where I can build the capacity of others in the region to keep the fight going and have it informed by the research I’m doing.”

Justine met many mentors and human rights advocates throughout her career who inspired her to advance her work in human rights. Among them, Justine noted the names of Emeritus Professor Andrea Durbach at UNSW, Professor Michael Posner at NYU and a DTP alumnus and a human right advocate in PNG, Emmanuel Peni (Manu). “These three people have different approaches, but they’re all very principled and value-driven, and I think that for me they are very inspiring.”

At present, democracy and human rights in Asia are facing multiple challenges, including the military takeover in Myanmar, Chinese expansion in the Pacific, and democratic backsliding in parts of the Pacific. However, Justine is optimistic.

“I think it will take a long time and organisations like DTP’s work on the ground matters more now than ever. DTP is building up a well-trained, educated, aware community pushing the issues in the Asia-Pacific region. Change is often most effective when it happens from within. That’s what DTP is doing. It’s helping people, empowering people to lead the change themselves.”