Alumni Profile: Nehal Bhuta

Degree: Arts 2000, Law (Honours) 2000 Current Position: Assistant Professor of Law, University of Toronto, Canada Nehal Bhuta is an expert in international criminal and humanitarian law who is best known for his work with the independent non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch. His studies of human rights, and in particular of justice and reconciliation in Iraq, have achieved worldwide recognition. After leaving the University of Melbourne, Nehal studied and worked in the USA for several years. Now based in Canada, he has recently been appointed to an academic role in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto.

Nehal Bhuta was a student of Arts and Law at the University of Melbourne between 1994 and 1999. During that time he was the recipient of many awards, culminating in the Supreme Court Prize and EJB Nunn Scholarship for the first-ranked student in the Law graduating class.

Nehal’s first stop after graduation was the Federal Court of Australia, where he worked as a law clerk to the Hon Justice AM North. He then completed Articles with Mallesons Stephen Jaques (Solicitors). During his time as an articled clerk he advised Oxfam Australia and two East Timor human rights organisations about international justice mechanisms for East Timor.

After being admitted to legal practice in 2002, Nehal was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to undertake postgraduate study in the USA. He went to the New School for Social Research in New York, where he obtained a Master of Arts in Political Science. During his MA studies, he worked as a research assistant to Professor Philip Alston at the New York University School of Law. He also served as a consultant on Iraq at the International Centre for Transitional Justice, where he co-led a field mission to Iraq to interview hundreds of Iraqis about their attitudes towards justice and reconciliation. Since that time, he has continued to keep a close watch on the development of the Iraqi Special Tribunal, including through meetings with tribunal staff and Iraqi government officials.

In 2004 Nehal was awarded the Hauser Global Scholarship, enabling him to study for a Master of Laws in International Legal Studies at New York University. He was then appointed Arthur C Helton Fellow at the independent nongovernmental organisation Human Rights Watch.

Nehal was appointed Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Toronto in January 2007. He has published numerous articles on human rights and his comments have been quoted extensively in international media coverage of Iraq. His areas of interest are human rights law, humanitarian law, political theory and political economy. Nehal recently returned to the Melbourne Law School to give a seminar on ‘The Law and Politics of the Saddam Hussein Trial’.