Recently, Workplace Review invited readers to guess who the September interview would feature, based on the following clues:

“… a member of the NSW judiciary who previously worked with former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. This judge has closely considered the question of implied duties in the contract of employment.”

And as our subscribers now know, it was Justice Stephen Rothman.

The judge was a founding member of the International Centre on Trade Union Rights, a body that was granted observer status to the ILO. In the late 1980s, the ILO selected him to advise the Soviet Union on attempts to establish free trade unions, during which time he worked with Mikhail Gorbachev.

There is a common thread to all of the judge’s activities – his work after university with trade unions, his diverse practice at the Bar and now at the bench as well as his active community engagement – and that is the pursuit of upholding fundamental human rights as part of a democratic society.

“Australia has a duty to its citizens to provide them with the means by which they can live in relative comfort… to respect its citizens regardless of race, colour, religion, sexual preference or gender. But in turn, all citizens have a duty to give back to society.”

The next issue of Workplace Review publishes in December, featuring an interview with one of Australia’s leading industrial law academics. He was fortunate to study under Paul Davies and Mark Freidland while at Oxford University, where Industrial Law was taught as a political subject and not just a body of rules.

Who do you think that might be?

To find out, to see his/her portrait by artist Simon Fieldhouse, and for ongoing access to this unique publication, subscribe now to Workplace Review by visiting the Thomson Reuters estore.

A version of this post first appear on Thomson Reuter’s Workplace: Fair Work portal, October 21, 2010.