“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millionshave been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.” Howard Zinn
Prof. Dr. Theo Gavrielides
Professor Theo Gavrielides, PhD, is a legal philosopher and an international expert in restorative justice and human rights.
He is the Founder and Director of the Restorative Justice for All (RJ4All) International Institute, which aims to advance community cohesion and redistribute power through the values of restorative justice. He is also the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of RJ4All Publications, which is the publishing arm of RJ4All. He founded RJ4All Sports, the fitness arm of RJ4All and runs the RJ4All Rotherhithe Community Centre.
In 2021, Professor Gavrielides received The Liberty of the Old Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey award as part of the Southwark Civic Awards 2020 for his contribution to the community during difficult times. He was admitted to the Bar by the Bar Standards Board of England and Wales as a transferring qualifying lawyer and called to the Bar (Middle Temple Inn).
In 2001, he founded The IARS International Institute, a user-led charity. In 2020, almost 20 years since IARS’ establishment, he stepped down as its Director.
Dr. Gavrielides is also a Visiting Professor at the University of East London as well as a Visiting Professor at Buckinghamshire New University (UK). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journals:
He is an advisor to the European Commission’s Horizon, Erasmus and CERV programmes, and the coordinator of a number of EU funded research projects on violent radicalisation, migration, restorative justice, youth and human rights.
In the past, he served as a Visiting Professorial Research Fellow at Panteion University of Social & Political Science (Greece), as a Distinguished Policy Fellow at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (REGNet) of Australian National University, as an Adjunct Professor at the School of Criminology of Simon Fraser University (Canada) and as a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for Comparative Criminological Research (ICCCR) at Open University (UK). He has also acted as an advisor to a number of government legal departments including the Chilean and UK Ministries of Justice, the Ministry of Justice of Uruguay, the Mayor of London, the Council of Europe and the British Council in the Middle East. He taught criminal law and common law reasoning and institutions at the University of London, and currently teaches on the BSc in Forensic Psychology at UEL.
He also worked at the Ministry of Justice as the Human Rights Advisor of the Strategy Directorate. There, he worked on the Human Rights Insight Project, which aimed to identify strategies that will further implement the principles underlying the Human Rights Act and improve public services. He also advised on the Ministry’s Education, Information and Advice strategy. During 2002-2004, he worked as a Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Professor Gavrielides is also very active in the community sector having acted as the Chief Executive of Race on the Agenda, a social policy think-tank focusing on race equality. Some of his volunteering roles include being a trustee of the Anne Frank Trust, a Governor at Albion Primary School, an Advisory Board Member of the Institute for Diversity Research, Inclusivity, Communities and Society (IDRICS), as a Member of the Scrutiny and Involvement Panel of the Crown Prosecution Service and the Independent Advisory Group of the London Criminal Justice Partnership.
He obtained a Doctorate in Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (PhD, 2005) and a Masters in Human Rights Law from Nottingham University (LL.M in Human Rights Law, 2000). He graduated from the Faculty of Laws of the National University of Athens and practised law at Gavrielides & Co.
Prof. Gavrielides has published extensively on social justice matters and human rights. His 2007 monograph “Restorative Justice Theory and Practice” was published by the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control affiliated with the United Nations (HEUNI) and his 2021 monograph “Power, Race & Restoration: The dialogue we Never Had” by Routledge.
In 2012, he edited “Rights and Restoration within Youth Justice”, in 2013 he co-edited ‘Reconstructing Restorative Justice Philosophy’ and in 2015 he edited ‘The Philosophy of Restorative Justice’ both published by Ashgate (now Routledge). He also edited ‘Offenders no More’ by NOVA Publishers (2015) and ‘Restorative Justice, The Library of Essays on Justice’ (2015) by Ashgate Publishing. He also edited ‘The Routledge International Handbook of Restorative Justice’ by Routled (2018), “Comparative Restorative Justice” (2021) published by Springer and co-edited (2022). Restorative Justice: Promoting Peace and Wellbeing, New York: Springer.