Professor Alan Miller

Professor Miller is an expert in human rights law and has four decades of experience as a human rights practitioner, including being unanimously elected by the Scottish Parliament to an eight-year term as inaugural chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission and then serving three years as a UN special envoy.

He is the architect of the Scottish Human Rights Bill. He told The Times: “This human rights bill is the most important piece of legislation that will ever have come before the Scottish parliament, because it has the potential to transform the way we govern ourselves.

“It will improve people’s lives. If it is passed and implemented it will be world leading because, post-Covid, the UN has asked every country to put economic, social and environmental rights front and centre in all its recovery elements.”

In response to the news of his award, he tweeted: “Thanks. I receive this lifetime achievement award from my peers with equal measures of surprise and honour. It is a tribute to the progress we are all making together. The journey continues..both for Scotland and personally!”