Tara Jane Melish
Associate Professor,
Director of the Buffalo Human Rights Center
J.D., Yale Law School, 2000
B.A., Brown University, 1996
University at Buffalo Law School
The State University of New York
317 O'Brian
Hall, North Campus
Buffalo, NY 14260-1100
Phone:(716) 645-2257
Faculty Assistant:
Mary Voglmayr, 622 O'Brian Hall, Phone: (716) 645-5984
Biography:
Tara Melish is a human rights attorney and legal specialist in the area of economic, social and cultural rights. Prior to coming to UB Law, she was a visiting assistant professor of law at the University of Notre Dame.
She received her J.D. from Yale Law School (2000) and B.A. from Brown University (1996).
Her recent articles include From Paradox to Subsidiarity: The United Staes and Human Rights Treaty Bodies (34 Yale J. Int'l L. 389 (2009)) and Rethinking the "Less as More" Thesis: Supranational Litigation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Americas (39 NYU Journal of International Law & Politics 171 (2006)).
Active in litigation and reporting initiatives before United Nations and Inter-American human rights bodies, she has worked in the United Nations Secretariat, in the drafting negotiations of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, at the Center for Justice and International Law, and as legal advisor or consultant to a number of international organizations. She was Editor in Chief of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, clerked for the Honorable James R. Browning on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and has been the recipient of professional fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, and the Yale Law School.
