UNESCO Chair Oration 2025: Daniela Gavshon
Make it stand out
The UNESCO Chair, Cultural Diversity and Social Justice, is honoured to invite you to join us for the 2025 UNESCO Chair Oration. It will be delivered this year by Daniela Gavshon, the Australia director at Human Rights Watch.
Gavshon will be speaking on the topic of Making the Most of Middle Power Status: Australia, Human Rights and a Changing World.
Following the Oration, UNESCO Chairholder and Deakin Distinguished Professor Fethi Mansouri will facilitate a Q and A.
Register to attend the 2025 UNESCO Oration
About the UNESCO Chair Oration
Founded in 2013, the UNESCO Chair Oration is an annual public lecture delivered by a pre-eminent leader, advocate and/or thinker in social justice, cultural diversity and human rights.
About Daniela Gavshon
Daniela Gavshon is the Australia director at Human Rights Watch. She leads the organisation’s engagement with the Australian government on foreign and domestic policy. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, she spent ten years working at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre. In that role, she founded the Truth and Accountability program and led human rights and war crimes investigations. She also led a landmark project mapping laws and policies affecting First Nations people in Australia.
From 2009-2012, Daniela was the Solomon Islands Head of Office for the International Center for Transitional Justice where she advised and supported the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In addition, Daniela has held positions in the Australian government foreign aid portfolio and with UN Women working on women, peace and security. Furthermore, she is an adjunct lecturer at the University of New South Wales.
Daniela holds degrees in law and arts from the University of Sydney. She obtained a master’s in international humanitarian law from the Geneva Academy on International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. Currently, Daniela is the Secretary of the International Bar Association’s War Crimes Committee, and is on the Advisory Committee of the Australian Human Rights Institute at the University of New South Wales.