Overview
Toerien van Wyk is a Lecturer (Legal Academic Skills) at Melbourne Law School. She works in the Ian Malkin Legal Academic Skills Centre, where she helps students develop their legal writing skills, and teaches in the JD Programme.
Toerien holds a PhD in Comparative Constitutional Law from the University of Melbourne, where she was part of the ARC Laureate Project in Comparative Constitutional Law. She also holds a Master of Laws: Human Rights Law (LLM) with distinction and a Higher Diploma in International Taxation from the University of Johannesburg, as well as an LLB with First Class Honours from the University of South Africa.
Toerien’s professional background is in human rights law practice. She previously co-directed the South African History Archive, a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting struggles for justice through information access laws and archival practices. She has also worked as a legal consultant for the South African Human Rights Commission.
Toerien’s research interests lie in human rights and constitutional law, with a particular emphasis on information access. Her PhD thesis examined the burdens placed on state actors by the constitutional recognition of a right to information. She has published on human rights and freedom of information.