Media Release
16 July 2008
The Australia-China Council Announces the Alice Tay Memorial Award Recipient for 2008
The Australia-China Council (ACC) is pleased to announce that Dr Sean Cooney is the 2008 recipient of the Alice Tay Memorial Award in the field of human rights. Dr Cooney is the third recipient of the Award since its inception.
Prior to her death in April 2004, Professor Alice Tay AM was a member of the ACC, President of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), a member of the Australia-China Human Rights Dialogue, a member of the Advisory Council to the Asia Society AustralAsia Centre and a member of the International Academy of Comparative Law, Paris. As President of HREOC, Professor Tay played a pivotal role in the Australia-China Human Rights Technical Cooperation Program. She also published over 10 books and 80 articles over 25 years on socialist and Marxist legal theory and the development of the Chinese legal system.
The $15,000 Award is made to an Australian who has made a significant contribution to improving the understanding of human rights in China and is seeking funding for a project proposal related to human rights in China.
Dr Cooney is a senior lecturer at the Melbourne Law School and Associate Director of the Asian Law Centre at the University of Melbourne, and is a leading Australian scholar of Chinese labour law and workers’ rights.
The Alice Tay Memorial Award will fund a workshop in Australia for participants from China and Australia involved in labour law enforcement, including labour law scholars with practical experience in the provision of advice to workers, leaders of community centres assisting workers with the enforcement of rights and trade unionists with experience in enforcing rights. The workshop will be run in collaboration with the International Labor Rights Fund and the Australian Council of Trade Unions.