Megan Davis

Megan Jane Davis FAHA FASSA FAAL is an Aboriginal Australian activist and international human rights lawyer. She was the first Indigenous Australian to sit on a United Nations body, and was Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Davis is Pro Vice-Chancellor, Indigenous, and Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of New South Wales. She is especially known for her work on the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Megan Davis
Born	1975
Alma mater	Australian National University
Awards	Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (2017) Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (2023)
Website	https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/professor-megan-jane-davis
Academic career
Institutions	University of New South Wales (2017–) University of New South Wales (2006–2016)

Early life and education

Megan Jane Davis^[1] was born in Monto. Her family moved along the Queensland Railway. Her ancestry is Aboriginal Australian (Cobble Cobble, from south-east Queensland^[2]) and South Pacific Islander.^[3]

She was brought up by a single parent, and one of her earliest interests was the United Nations General Assembly.^[4] She attended the University of Queensland, earning a law degree.^[5] In this period she met and was mentored by Jackie Huggins, who convinced her to work for the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action (FAIRA) in Brisbane, which led her to apply to the United Nations Fellowship.^[5]

Career

Davis was an international lawyer at the United Nations, where in the period from 1999 until 2004 she helped work on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, including providing legal advice to ATSIC Commissioners during the drafting stages.^[5][6]

In 2010, she became the first Indigenous Australian woman to be elected to a United Nations body when she was appointed to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues^[7] which is based in New York. holding that position from 2011 to 2016.^[3] She has been a member of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) since 2017, and in July 2021 she was appointed its chair.^[6]

Davis was on the Australian Government's expert panel on the country's Indigenous people in 2011, and was a member of the Prime Minister's Referendum Council from 2015-2017.^[2][8]

As a member of the Referendum Council, Davis was instrumental in assisting the development of the Uluru Statement From the Heart, designing the deliberative dialogues and chairing the Council's sub-committee for the First Nations regional Dialogues and the First Nations Constitutional Convention in 2017.^[9]

Davis was the Director of the Indigenous Law Centre (part of the UNSW law faculty) from 2006-2016.^[10] She was subsequently appointed the university's Pro Vice-Chancellor in 2017,^[10][11] Indigenous and the Indigenous Law Centre's Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law in 2020.^[9][12]

In 2023 she wrote "Voice of Reason: On Recognition and Renewal" which was published by Quarterly Essay.^[13]

Other roles

In 2017, Davis was appointed a Commissioner on the Australian Rugby League Commission.^[14] In 2020 she was reappointed for another term.^[15] Davis has described growing up in a "crazy rugby league family", and wanting to "give back to a game that gave so much to me and my family".^[14]

Awards and honours

• In October 2018 Professor Davis was named overall winner of The Australian Financial Review 100 Women of Influence award.^[16]

• Davis was elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2017 and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.^[17]

• Davis accepted the Sydney Peace Prize in 2021, alongside Pat Anderson and Noel Pearson, on behalf of the Uluru Statement From the Heart.^[18]

• Davis is listed on the Te Hononga Pūkenga ("the connection of experts") database of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, New Zealand's Māori Centre of Research Excellence.^[19]
• She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2023.^[20]

References

1. "Professor Megan Jane Davis". UNSW Sydney. Retrieved 23 July 2021.
2. Randall Abate; Elizabeth Ann Kronk (1 January 2013). Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples: The Search for Legal Remedies. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-78100-180-6.
3. Five questions to Megan Davis: on Aboriginal self-determination, 16 May 2014, The Guardian, Retrieved 12 August 2016
4. UNSW human rights lawyer Professor Megan Davis has been elected Chair of the United Nation's Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Archived 8 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine, 22 April 2015, UNSW.edu.au, Retrieved 12 August 2016
5. "Interview series – Because of her, we can". Inside UNSW. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
6. Coulson, Britney (21 July 2021). "Professor Megan Davis elected chair of prestigious United Nations group". National Indigenous Times. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
7. Megan Davis, womenaustralia.info, Retrieved 11 August 2016
8. "Professor Megan Davis". National Rugby League. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
9. "Megan Davis". Uluru Statement from the Heart. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
10. "Professor Megan Jane Davis". research.unsw.edu.au. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
11. Newsroom, UNSW (2017). "Professor Megan Davis Has Been Appointed As UNSW's First Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous". Indigenous Law Bulletin. 8 (28): 3. {{cite journal}}: |last= has generic name (help)
12. "UNSW Professor named Chair in Constitutional Law". Inside UNSW. 2 June 2020. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
13. [e-mail]1621624313 (21 November 2022). "Voice of Reason: On recognition and renewal". Quarterly Essay. Retrieved 1 July 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
14. Halloran, Jessica (1 August 2020). "For the love of the game: Megan Davis gives back through ARL Commission". Retrieved 21 March 2022.
15. "Kate Jones joins Australian Rugby League Commission". National Rugby League. 10 November 2020. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
16. Patten, Sally (17 October 2018). "Women of Influence 2018 winner fights for recognition of Indigenous Australians". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
17. "Academy Fellow: Professor Megan Davis FASSA, FAAL". Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
18. "'Historic offering of peace': Uluru Statement from the Heart wins 2021 Sydney Peace Prize". Sydney Peace Foundation. 28 May 2021. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
19. "Professor Megan Davis". Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga. Retrieved 20 August 2019. Te Hononga Pūkenga - 'the connection of experts', was created by Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga to make Māori and Indigenous research expertise, location and contact information readily available...
20. "Fellow Profile – Megan Davis". Australian Academy of the Humanities. Retrieved 22 November 2023.