The Australian Women's Register

Elizabeth Evatt studied Law at the University of Sydney and at Harvard Law School. A Barrister-at-law at Inner Temple and the New South Wales Bar, her legal career began in England where she was a barrister and editor of the International and Comparative Law Quarterly. In 1968 she was invited to join Lord Scarman at the English Law Commission where she worked for five years.

Evatt was Deputy President of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission from 1973-76, before becoming the first Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia (1976-1988). From 1988-1993 she was president of the Australian Law Reform Commission, and Chancellor of the University of Newcastle from 1988-1994.

Between 1984-1992, Evatt was a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, serving as Chair of the Committee from 1989-1991. She was a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee from 1993-2000, and was a part time Commissioner of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission from 1995-1998.

Evatt is currently a judge of the World Bank Administrative Tribunal; a Visiting Professor at the University of New South Wales; and Chair of the Board of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in Sydney. She has for many years been a member of the Australian section of the International Commission of Jurists, and was elected as a Commissioner in April 2003. A niece of former Labor leader Dr H. V. Evatt, Elizabeth Evatt is a Life Member of the Evatt Foundation, and served as Vice-President from 1982-1987.