Frances Raday

Frances Raday (born January 29, 1944, in Manchester, England) is a professor emerita of Elias Lieberman Chair in Labor Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Raday is currently a professor of law at the Haim Striks Law School at Colman College of Management Academic Studies, where she also acts as president of the Concord Center for Integration of International Law in Israel and as head of the school's graduate programs.

Raday is also an honorary professor at University College London and is doctor honoris at the University of Copenhagen.

She has been and continues to be an activist for human rights, as a litigator in Israel's Supreme Court, an expert member of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Committee and a member of various governmental and non-governmental organisations.

Between 1966 and 1968 she was a lecturer at the University of East Africa in Tanzania, where she established the first East African labor law course.

In 1968 she immigrated to Israel and completed her Ph.D. studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she became Elias Lieberman Chair in Labor Law.

Raday has been visiting professor at the Universities of Southern California, Tulane University, University of Copenhagen and Oxford University.

Raday is currently a Professor of Law at the Haim Striks Law School at Colman College of Management Academic Studies, where she is also president of the Concord Center for Integration of International Law in Israel, with its International Human Rights Law Amicus Clinic, and is also head of the School's Graduate Programs.

Raday has served as editor in chief of the Israel Law Review; chair of the Lafer Center for Women’s Studies at the Hebrew University; Chair of the Academic Committee of the Minerva Center for Human Rights; and chair of the Israeli Association of Feminist and Gender Studies.

Raday's research has focused on the development of theory as regards rights to equality of disadvantaged groups.

She has written a number of books and many academic articles on these issues.

She has also participated in many conferences and panels, given many public lectures and has educated many generations of students in courses on labour law, international human rights, feminism, state and religion and secular constitutionalism.

She is an advocate and activist at both the international and the state levels.

Since 1979, Raday has been an advocate for human rights in precedent setting cases in Israel's Supreme Court, including employees' rights in transfer of enterprises (the Ramta Case), freedom of association and collective bargaining (the Amit case), Palestinian employees' class action for full National Insurance rights, women's constitutional rights to equality in religious ritual at public sites (Women of the Wall) and sex discrimination in cases concerning sexual harassment, retirement age (the Nevo Case) and promotion.

She has appeared as an expert witness in US courts on employee-inventors’ rights to patent ownership.

As President of the Concord Amicus Clinic she has been co-counsel in a petition to end extortionate recruitment fees for migrant workers, and in amicus briefs submitted to court on international human rights law regarding trafficking for work or for sexual exploitation, women's rights to equality in divorce, appointment of women to committees appointing judges in the rabbinical courts, the right to appoint women as arbitrators in Sharia courts, age of majority for children in the Occupied Territories and whistleblowing.

In 2002, Raday received the Israel Bar Association Prize for Excellent Women Lawyers for her outstanding contribution to the promotion of women.

As of 2011, she serves as member of the UN Human Rights Council Working Group on Discrimination against Women.

Raday is married and has three children.

Raday grew up in the UK.

She studied law at the London School of Economics.

After completing her LL.B. she worked as a researcher at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.

Since 2011 she has been vice-chair of the esteemed UN Human Rights Council Working Group on Discrimination Against Women, operating in Geneva and will be the chair commencing in June 2013.

Previously, she served as an expert member on the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

Raday is chair of the Advisory Council for Israel's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

She has been a chair of a number of civil society organisations, amongst them founding chair of the Israel Women's Network Legal Center and chair of the Committee for Advancement of Women of the Israel Bar Association.

She is a member of the International Board of the New Israel Fund, Keshev Center for the Protection of Democracy in Israel, the Public Trust Organization, the Van Leer Economics and Society Group, Bashaar - Academic community for Israeli Society outreach and has been a member of other governmental and non-governmental reform or human rights bodies, including the National Committee to set Retirement Age and the Corruption Committee established by the state comptroller.