Tara J. Melish

Tara J. Melish is Professor of Law and Director of the Human Rights Center at SUNY Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York. She is a specialist in the area of international law and human rights, with a particular focus on comparative national and international approaches to the legal protection of economic, social and cultural rights. Active in litigation and reporting initiatives before United Nations and Inter-American human rights bodies, Professor Melish has worked as associate social affairs officer in the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, as staff attorney at the Center for Justice and International Law, as United Nations representative of Disability Rights International in the drafting negotiations of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and as researcher at the Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in South Africa, among other positions. She sits on the faculty of the Global School on Socio-Economic Rights. A graduate of Brown University and Yale Law School, Melish served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, as law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Land Claims Court of South Africa, and has taught on the law faculties of numerous universities, including Oxford, Notre Dame, Virginia, George Washington, Georgia, and Åbo Akademi (Finland). With extensive work and training experience in Latin America and parts of Africa, she has been the recipient of professional fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, Yale Law School, and the Fulbright Foundation.

Currently Teaching

Economic, Culture and Social Rights (LAW-861-001)

Areas of Specialization

• International/Comparative Law
• Disability Rights
• International Human Rights/Humanitarian Law