Anne Burley was born and educated in New Zealand. She came to London in 1959 and has lived there ever since, apart from a year working for the United Nations in Croatia (see below). She joined the staff of Amnesty International (AI) in January 1968 and worked for that organization until she retired in 2002. She was AI’s researcher on many countries at different times, including the United Kingdom and the United States of America, but her longest periods as a researcher were on Turkey, Greece and Cyprus, and Iran, of which she was AI’s researcher from 1972 until 1984. She led two Amnesty International missions to Iran, in November 1978 and April 1979. From 1980 Anne Burley was the Director of AI’s Europe Regional Department, until shortly before her retirement, she acted as Special Advisor to the new Secretary General of AI. During a year’s leave from AI in 1997-98, she set up a Human Rights unit in UNPROFOR. Immediately following that, she was for six months the Head of the UN Human Rights Commissioner’s Office in Croatia.
