Gillian MacNaughton, Executive Director

Gillian MacNaughton is the executive director of the Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE).  In this position, she works to raise awareness of international economic and social rights at Northeastern University School of Law, in the United States and internationally by organizing human rights events, coordinating the PHRGE fellow co-op program, supervising Ford fellows and PHRGE interns, researching and advising on human rights projects, publishing articles and papers, as well as overseeing PHRGE projects day-to-day. Gillian's research focuses on human rights and poverty, equality rights, and the rights to health, education and decent work. Currently, she is collaborating with Professor Lisa Forman at the University of Toronto on a human rights impact assessment project funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research.  She is also writing a series of articles on the right to decent work with Diane F. Frey at the London School of Economics.

Previously, Gillian was a tutor in international human rights law at several colleges and programs affiliated with the University of Oxford in the UK, including the Sarah Lawrence and Stanford University Programs in Oxford.  She also served as a senior research officer at the Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, where she assisted Professor Paul Hunt on his mandate as UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health. In that position, Gillian was funded by UNESCO to develop a methodology for human rights impact assessment, and by the Canadian International Development Agency to work on a human rights-based approach to health indicators. Gillian has also worked at INTERIGHTS on women's health-related human rights.

Gillian has served as an advisor on human rights projects carried out by UNICEF, Rights & Democracy, the Vermont Workers' Center in collaboration with the National Social and Economic Rights Initiative, and The Lancet in collaboration with the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health.  She holds a BEd from McGill University, a JD from Vermont Law School, an MPA from Harvard University and an MSt in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford.  She is a member of the Vermont Bar.

• "Decent Work for All: A Holistic Human Rights Approach," co-author Diane F. Frey, American University International Law Review (forthcoming 2010).

• "A Human Rights-Based Approach to Social Impact Assessment" co-author Paul Hunt, chapter in New Directions in Social Impact Assessment: Conceptual and Methodological Advances edited by Frank Vanclay & Ana Maria Esteves, Edward Elgar Publishing (forthcoming 2010).

• "Decent Work, Human Rights and the Millennium Development Goals" co-author Diane F. Frey, 7 Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal 303 (2010).

• "Untangling Equality and Nondiscrimination to Promote the Right to Health Care for All" 11(2) Health and Human Rights: An International Journal 47 (2009).

• "Health Impact Assessment: The Contribution of the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health" co-author Paul Hunt, 123 Public Health 302 (2009).

• "A Human Rights-Based Approach to Health Indicators" co-author Paul Hunt, chapter in Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Action edited by Mashood Baderin & Robert McCorquodale, Oxford University Press (2007).

• "Impact Assessments, Poverty and Human Rights: A Case Study Using the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health" co-author Paul Hunt, Health and Human Rights Working Paper Series No 6, World Health Organization and UNESCO (2006).

• "Women's Human Rights related to Health-Care in the Context of HIV/AIDS" Health and Human Rights Working Paper Series No 5, World Health Organization (2004).