Ron McCallum

Ronald Clive McCallum AO (born 8 October 1948 ) is an Australian legal academic. He is an expert in labour law, and has served as a professor and dean of law at the University of Sydney. He is the first totally blind person to be appointed to a full professorship in any subject at any university in Australia or New Zealand, as well as the first to become a Dean of Law in these countries. He chaired the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Geneva.

Early life Ron McCallum was born in Melbourne, ten weeks premature and weighing only three pounds. At the time, treating this prematurity was treated by placing the baby in a humidicrib with uncontrolled supplemental oxygen; while this treatment prevented McCallum from dying, it meant that he permanently lost his sight. He was diagnosed with retrolental fibroplasia.

His father, Patrick McCallum, who had post-traumatic stress due to his experiences in World War II, died during McCallum's childhood. He was raised by his mother, Edna McCallum, along with his two brothers in the Melbourne suburb of Hampton, in relatively poor conditions. He graduated from Monash Law School with a Bachelor of Jurisprudence in 1970, and a Bachelor of Laws in 1972. He later pursued graduate studies in Canada at the Queen's University Faculty of Law, earning his LL.M. in 1974. He became increasingly well known for his work on labour law, and has published 10 books on the topic, as well as numerous chapters, journal articles and papers. He was invited to teach at Osgoode Hall Law School in Canada and Duke University in the United States. While in North America, he was appointed to the National Academy of Arbitrators. In this role, he has participated in five worldwide comparative labour law studies which have been published in what is now titled the Comparative Labour Law and Policy Journal.

In January 1993, he was appointed the foundation Blake Dawson Waldron Professor of Industrial Law at Sydney University. Nine years later, he commenced a five-year term as Dean of Law. McCallum is the first totally blind person to be appointed by any university in Australasia to a full professorship in any field or as Dean of Law.

McCallum retired from his position as Dean of Sydney Law School in 2007. However he has continued working at the Law School in his position of Professor of Labour Law. In February 2009, he was appointed inaugural Rapporteur to the Convention and in October was elected chair of the committee. He was reelected to the Committee in 2010 and remains as chair.

McCallum has been a Don't DIS my ABILITY ambassador for four years.

On 7 December 2010, McCallum commenced his consultancy at HWL Ebsworth.

In 2013, McCallum also became an ambassador for European NGO confederation, LIGHT FOR THE WORLD.

In 2017, McCallum appeared alongside Matt Formston on the Season 2 premiere episode of You Can't Ask That entitled "Blind People".

In 2019, McCallum published a book titled Born at the Right Time. The book details his life's story and how advancements in technology helped him reach heights previously impossible for blind people.

Honours On 25 January 2011, he was declared the 2011 Senior Australian of the Year. In 2014, he won the Henry Viscardi Achievement Awards.

Personal life At age 37, McCallum married Mary Crock, a B.A., LL.B., and PhD (Law) graduate of the University of Melbourne and its law school and now Professor of Law at the University of Sydney. They have two sons (Gerard McCallum and Daniel Clive McCallum) and a daughter (Kathryn McCallum).