Dr Rick Lines

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Dr Rick Lines is Chair of the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy, which he co-founded in 2009.  Rick is an Associate Professor of Criminology and Human Rights at the School of Law, Swansea University, where he is Co-Director of the Centre on Criminology and Criminal Justice. He is known for his leading research and teaching on subjects including international drug control law, prisoners' rights, HIV and human rights, capital punishment and harm reduction. 

Rick is the former Executive Director of Harm Reduction International (2010-2018) and the Irish Penal Reform Trust (2003-2007), and for more than a decade represented NGOs at high level United Nations fora including the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the UN Human Rights Council and the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board. He is a past member of the Strategic Advisory Group to the United Nations Drug Use and HIV, the Technical Advisory Group to the Global Commission on HIV and the Law and the Reference Group to the United Nations on HIV and Injecting Drug Use.

His first book, Drug Control and Human Rights in International Law, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017.