It's a less benign fraud, if the claims are proven, than that of Stephen Wilce or the fake Mgqumeni Khumalo, supposedly resurrected after having been kept in a South African cave by zombies for two years. (Who would have thought that zombies were so hospitable?).
In evidence last month to the Royal Commission into Building Failure Caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes Shirtcliff claimed to be a "graduate engineer" who had been a supervisor on construction projects in South Africa.
The SMH states that
An investigation by Fairfax Media shows that in 1970 Mr Shirtcliff stole the identity of an English engineer called William Anthony Fisher, with whom he worked in South Africa in 1968 and 1969.
Mr Shirtcliff has lived in Australia as William Fisher for more than 25 years. [After leaving] South Africa in late 1969 to settle in Sydney, he took on Mr Fisher's identity, including his birthplace, birthdate and his bachelor of engineering degree from the University of Sheffield.
Mr Shirtcliff used the real Will Fisher's bachelor's degree to gain entry to a masters program at the University of NSW in 1971 and, in 1972, to become a member of the Australian Institute of Engineers. He was awarded a master of engineering science in highway engineering in April 1974.
He later worked as an engineer for a Sydney firm, then called MacDonald, Wagner and Priddle (to become Connell Wagner and then Aurecon), before returning to New Zealand in the mid-80s to work under his Shirtcliff name.
In NZ he purported to be a "registered" engineer and at one time a "chartered" engineer.
Mr Shirtcliff used his new identity on company documents and to try to avoid extradition to NZ on fraud allegations. He spent a week in a Brisbane jail in 2003 before conceding he was Gerald Shirtcliff.Shirtcliff is reported as maintaining that he had an engineering degree from Sheffield University, denied misleading the Royal Commission and indicated that he changed his name by deed poll in Australia 40 years ago after "a family rift".
The SMH states that
He denied any of the wrongdoing suggested by Fairfax and threatened to sue if it published the allegations.
In 2009 Mr Shirtcliff was employed as a contractor by the global engineering consultancy WorleyParsons in Brisbane. Information that Fairfax gave WorleyParsons prompted the firm to launch an immediate investigation, which led to the ''termination of his [Shirtcliff's] relationship with the company'' last month. The firm was reviewing all his work. Almost immediately after leaving WorleyParsons, Mr Shirtcliff joined Sedgman, another international engineering firm in Brisbane, as an independent contractor. On learning about the allegations, Sedgman began inquiries and stopped his contract.
Engineers Australia, which oversees the registration of engineers, has begun an investigation, as has the University of NSW. A spokeswoman for the university said that if the allegations proved that a degree had been obtained by using false documents, the degree would be cancelled.Meanwhile 'Biosurveillance, human rights, and the zombie plague' by Jeremy Youde in (2012) 24(1) Global Change, Peace and Security comments
The International Health Regulations (2005) gave the World Health Organization a central role in collecting biosurveillance data and explicitly recognized the importance of human rights for the first time. Human rights and biosurveillance have a complicated relationship with one another though. Surveillance systems are necessary in order to arrest the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, but these same surveillance systems can be used in discriminatory ways. Is some sort of resolution or detente possible? This article investigates the role of the World Health Organization in implementing these potentially competing imperatives contained within the International Health Regulations (2005). To understand this relationship, it examines how the World Health Organization would implement the International Health Regulations in case of an international zombie outbreak.Youde argues
The International Health Regulations (2005) gave the World Health Organization a central role in collecting biosurveillance data and explicitly recognized the importance of human rights for the first time. Human rights and biosurveillance have a complicated relationship with one another though. Surveillance systems are necessary in order to arrest the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, but these same surveillance systems can be used in discriminatory ways. Is some sort of resolution or detente possible? This article investigates the role of the World Health Organization in implementing these potentially competing imperatives contained within the International Health Regulations (2005). To understand this relationship, it examines how the World Health Organization would implement the International Health Regulations in case of an international zombie outbreak.
When an infectious disease outbreak occurs, the international community has a moral and international legal obligation to track its spread and use the data collected for the benefit of the general population. Under the terms of the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005), the World Health Organization is legally empowered to collect and disseminate biosurveillance data, and WHO's 194 member states are legally obligated to provide this data as one of their core public health functions and use it in a way that respects and promotes human rights. Human rights and biosurveillance have a complicated relationship with one another. On the one hand, surveillance systems are necessary in order to arrest the spread of infectious disease outbreaks so as to better protect the health of all communities. On the other hand, though, these same surveillance systems can be used in discriminatory ways, impose heavy burdens, and abrogate freedom of movement and speech. Is some sort of resolution or detente possible?
In this article, I investigate how the International Health Regulations (2005) empower the World Health Organization to operationalize biosurveillance in a manner that promotes and respects human rights as a transnational good that can benefit humanity as a whole. While this represents a significant step forward for the international community and better integrates biosurveillance and human rights, there remain some ambiguities and underdeveloped protections that deserve greater attention from the World Health Organization.
The real test of any relationship between biosurveillance and human rights, though, comes when it is pushed to its limits. Perhaps no transnational infectious disease outbreak could challenge the international community more than a zombie outbreak. The recent explosion of interest in zombies in popular culture (and academia) ‘provides a window into the subliminal or unstated fears of citizens, and zombies are no different’.1 How well would the relationship between biosurveillance and human rights hold in the face of an outbreak of the undead?
To make this argument, I begin by examining the meaning of biosurveillance. This leads into a discussion of zombies and how representations of zombies in popular culture mirror infectious disease outbreaks. I then move on to explore how this idea has played out in the International Health Regulations. This treaty, the leading health-related treaty in the international community, has witnessed dramatic evolutions in its conceptualization of biosurveillance and the role of human rights. Finally, I examine how the interplay between respecting human rights and drawing on the resources and skills of non-state actors can encourage compliance with the International Health Regulations and safeguarding individual rights. The International Health Regulations’ approach to human rights is not perfect, but its current form is a significant improvement over the past.
