Waddington, LB (Lisa)

Lisa Waddington is the European Disability Forum Professor of European Disability Law. Her Chair was established in cooperation with the European Disability Forum. Professor Waddington participates in a number of European networks and projects, and is a member of the senior research team and legal research coordinator for the European Disability Expertise (EDE) Network, and the Senior Expert on the Ground of Disability in the European Network of Legal Research in Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination.

Professor Waddington has successfully tendered for, led, and participated in a number of large research projects. In 2000, she received an ASPASIA award from the NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). Between 2004 and 2007 she coordinated a large EU research and education project on European non-discrimination law. She has also coordinated the involvement of Maastricht University in the FP7 EuRADE project (European Research Agendas expanding Disability Equality); the Marie Curie Initial Training Network DREAM (Disability Rights Expanding Accessible Markets, 2011-2015); and the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Innovative Training network DARE (Disability Advocacy Research in Europe (2019-2022). She was a Principal Investigator on the Australian Research Council Project “Model Laws to regulate the Use of Restraint on Persons with Disabilities” (2016-2019). She is a Principal Investigator on the LaW-BALANCE project (Life and Work in Balance: Legal responses to working life in times of change and crisis funded by the Research Council of Norway (2023-2027).

Professor Waddington’s principal area of research lie in European and comparative disability law, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and European and comparative equality law in general. She has published widely in academic journals, and has written major thematic reports for the European Commission, European Parliament and the Council of Europe, among others. She is the co-editor and co-author (with Anna Lawson) of The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Practice: A Comparative Analysis of the Role of Courts, Oxford University Press, 2018. She has published peer reviewed papers in, amongst others, the European Law Review, the Common Market Law Review, the European Law Journal, the American Journal of International Law, the Australian Journal of Human Rights, the European Journal of Human Rights and the Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law. Professor Waddington also has a particular interest in how universities can be made welcoming and inclusive places for people with disabilities, including students and staff.

Professor Waddington holds an LL.B in Law and Politics (First Class Honours) from Birmingham University, UK and a Ph.D from the European University Institute in Florence. In 2023 Professor Waddington will be awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Université Saint-Louis. Furthermore, she holds a University Teaching Qualification (Basis Kwalificatie Onderwijs, BKO).

Professor Waddington is a member of the Maastricht Centre for European Law, the Ius Commune Research School, the Maastricht Centre for Human Rights, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Law and Anti-Discrimination Law. Between 1993 and 2004 she was the editor of the Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law. Professor Waddington has been a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, the University of Melbourne and Leeds University.