Professor Ray Murphy

Professor Ray Murphy

Ray Murphy is a professor at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway. In addition to his position at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, he is on the faculty of the International Institute for Criminal Investigations. He was the EU Fundamental Rights Agency Senior Expert for Ireland, a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Human Rights Institutes and a Commissioner with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission from 2014-19.  Ray is a former member and Vice Chair of the Executive Committee of Amnesty International (Ireland).  He has also conducted training on behalf of the ICRC, No Peace Without Justice, Amnesty International, the UN, the International Institute for Humanitarian Law and the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre (Canada).

Ray was a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for International Law, Al-Haq, Palestine in 2014. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 2006 and worked with Human Rights Watch in New York as a resident scholar. He is a former Captain in the Irish Defence Forces and he served with the Irish contingent of UNIFIL in Lebanon in 1981/82 and again in 1989. He practiced as a barrister for a short period before starting to work at NUI Galway. He was Chairperson of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission from 1997 to 2000. He has field experience with the OSCE in Bosnia in 1996 and 1997. He has also worked on short assignments in west and southern Africa and the Middle East for Amnesty International and the EU.