The Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS, PANCAP, congratulates Human rights lawyer, Dr Christopher Arif Bulkan on his appointment as an acting Justice of Appeal, Georgetown Guyana.

In September 2017, Dr Bulkan was nominated by Cabinet for candidature to represent Guyana on the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). He also was a former lecturer at the University of the West Indies with specialisations in Public Law, Constitutional Law, Caribbean Human Rights Law, and International Human Rights Law.

He also co-founded the Faculty of Law UWI Rights Advocacy Project (U-RAP) at the Cave Hill campus, which is a group of law professors who engage in both litigation and advocacy aimed at promoting human rights.

Dr Bulkan has been involved in human rights advocacy for many years and has worked to establish and defend the rights of vulnerable and marginalised communities, including indigenous peoples, LGBT persons and persons living with HIV and AIDS. He has also been involved in public advocacy against the death penalty, both regionally and at events sponsored by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Dr Bulkan was appointed a PANCAP Champion for Change on September 12, 2017 during the relaunch of the initiative, Champions for change IV: ending AIDS by 2030’.  Read about the event here. 

Biography 

Dr Arif Bulkan is an attorney-at-law who formerly practised law in Guyana as a prosecutor and then criminal defence lawyer. He subsequently obtained a PhD in Law from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Canada, and currently lectures constitutional law and human rights law in the Faculty of Law of the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies. He is the author of ‘The Survival of Indigenous Rights in Guyana’, published by the Institute of Development Studies of the University of Guyana in 2014, and a co-author of ‘Fundamentals of Caribbean Constitutional Law’ along with Tracy Robinson and Adrian Saunders, published by Sweet and Maxwell in 2015; as well as the author of several articles in regional and international journals in the areas of constitutional law and human rights. As a consultant for PANCAP, Arif Bulkan produced a National Assessment of laws and policies impacting on HIV/AIDS in Guyana in 2004.

Arif Bulkan is a co-founder, along with Tracy Robinson and Douglas Mendes SC, of the University of the West Indies Rights Advocacy Project [U-RAP], which aims to promote human rights, equality and social justice in the Caribbean through litigation and advocacy. U-RAP initiated two ground-breaking cases seeking to promote the rights of LGBT persons in Belize and Guyana, both of which are currently under appeal. Between 2011 and 2015 Arif Bulkan served as a director of Transparency Institute of Guyana, an affiliate of Transparency International, which aims at monitoring and promoting accountability and transparency in public affairs. For his regional contributions to human rights and democracy, Arif Bulkan was conferred with the Anthony N Sabga Award for Public and Civic Contributions in 2017.