Aslan Abashidze
is the head of the Department of International Law at Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (rudn University) in Moscow, professor of International Law and Honoured Lawyer of the Russian Federation. He is a member, Vice-Chair and Rapporteur of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (since 2010) and a former member of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (2008 to 2009). He is also a professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and emeritus professor at the Russian-Tajic Slavonic University (Tajikistan) and at the LN Gumilyov Eurasian National University (Kazakhstan). He has established the joint llm Programme ‘International Protection of Human Rights’ (in Russian and in English) as the first Master’s programme in human rights in Russia, supported by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Within this programme he has developed various human rights courses and learning materials, including the course and the textbook Human Rights Treaty Bodies, which is the first and only discipline and textbook of this kind in Russia. He has published more than 1 000 research works, including monographs, textbooks and teaching guides.
Foluso Adegalu
is a doctoral researcher, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, and a co-manager of its Litigation and Implementation Unit. He holds an llm degree from the University of Ibadan.
Alexander Agnello
is a researcher and Master of Laws (llm) candidate at McGill University, where he also obtained Juris Doctor (jd) and Bachelor of Civil Law (bcl) degrees. He has worked for the oecd, the Asian Development Bank, and the Ombudsperson of British Columbia.
Malene Alleyne
is a human rights lawyer and founder of Freedom Imaginaries. She holds a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School and a Master of Advanced Studies from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva.
is Professor of Political Science, Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University. He has also taught at American University in Cairo; Law School, Harvard; and Colgate University. He was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles (ucla), and a Research Associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has published in English, French and Arabic on issues related to civil society, human rights and the politics of development in Arab countries.
Thiago Amparo
is a law professor at São Paulo Law School of Fundação Getulio Vargas (fgv), Brazil, teaching human rights, international law and constitutional law. Amparo holds doctorate and master’s degrees from Central European University (Budapest, Hungary) and was a visiting scholar at Columbia Law School.
Alejandro Anaya-Muñoz
is a research professor at the Department of Social, Political and Legal Studies at iteso, Jesuit University in Guadalajara, Mexico. He holds a PhD degree in government, from the University of Essex. He has been Fulbright Scholar at the Human Rights Programme of the University of Minnesota and Mexico Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, in Washington DC. His most recent book is Mexico’s Human Rights Crisis, co-edited with Barbara Frey (University of Pennsylvania Press 2018).
Odara Andrade
is a Master’s student at the Law Faculty of São Paulo-usp; Researcher Assistant at São Paulo Law School of Fundação Getulio Vargas (fgv).
Hatano Ayako
is a research fellow at the Centre of Human Rights Education and Training (Japan) and a DPhil (PhD) candidate at University of Oxford (Law Faculty). She has experience in research and practice in the fields of international human rights law, gender and development with international organisations, governments and civil society organisations. She holds a JD and a ma from the University of Tokyo and an llm from New York University School of Law (Fulbright Scholar).
holds an ma from the American University in Cairo, for a thesis ‘Backsliding to autocracy: The case of Turkey under Erdogan’, May 2021.
Grażyna Baranowska
PhD in law, is an assistant professor at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Post-Doctoral Research at the Hertie School in Berlin. Previously she worked as a researcher and policy advisor to a member of the UN Committee for Enforced Disappearances. Her book Rights of Families of Disappeared Persons. How International Bodies Address the Needs of Families of Disappeared Persons in Europe was published with Intersentia in 2021.
Deborah Bittar
is an undergraduate student at the Faculty of Law of the University of São Paulo (usp); intern and research assistant at São Paulo Law School of Fundação Getulio Vargas (fgv).
Jitka Brodská
is a diplomat, currently working as the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the United Nations in Geneva. During her diplomatic career, she was posted at the Embassy of the Czech Republic to the Kingdom of The Netherlands (covering legal and multilateral issues) and the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic to the United Nations Office and Other International Organizations in Geneva, Switzerland (human rights and humanitarian affairs). She also worked as the Deputy Director of the Human Rights and Transition Policy Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic in Prague. Jitka Brodská has a degree in law from the Faculty of Law of the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and in international trade from the Faculty of International Relations of the University of Economics in Prague, Czech Republic. She further studied at the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and at the Clingendael Institute of International Relations in The Hague, The Netherlands.
Başak Çalı
is co-director of the Centre for Fundamental Rights and professor of international law at the Hertie School, Berlin. She is also a faculty member at Koç University Law School, Istanbul and the Chairperson of the European Implementation Network, Strasbourg.
has a law degree from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and a Master’s Degree in Human Rights, Rule of Law and Democracy in Iberoamerica from the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Spain. Since 2008 she has worked in the field of human rights with civil society organisations, and from 2011 to 2014 in the Mexico City ombudsman office. She has participated as coordinator and author in books and articles for national and international academic journals; likewise, in conferences, congresses, training courses, diplomas, and as a tutor in various courses related to human rights and transitional justice. Currently, she is a professor at the Universidad Tecnológica Latinoamericana and deputy-director of Analysis and Strategy of the Mexican Commission for the Defence and Promotion of Human Rights.
Carlos Villán Durán
is a professor of international human rights law and co-director of the Master on International Protection of Human Rights at the University of Alcalá (Madrid). He is the author and co-editor of 19 books and some 165 articles and chapters on international human rights law. He is a member of the editorial boards of four Latin American periodicals, president of the Spanish Society for ihrl and former staff member of ohchr (1982 to 2005).
Betül Durmuş
is a research assistant in public international law and a PhD candidate in public law at Koç University. She is also a Human Rights Law Reporter for Oxford Reports on International Law. She holds an llm degree in public law from Koç University.
Omar A El-Gammal
has an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge. He previously graduated from the American University in Cairo with a ba (Hons) in economics and political science. He also obtained a Bachelor of Laws from Ain Shams University.
İlayda Eskitaşçıoğlu
is a PhD candidate in public law at Koç University, a fellow at the unesco Chair for Sustainable Development and Gender Equality and a researcher at Koç University Gender Studies Centre. She holds an llm degree in European and International Human Rights Law from Leiden University.
is a lecturer at rmit University, having previously worked at Monash University, as well as in the government and ngo sectors. He holds a PhD from Monash University on the subject of human rights scrutiny in the Australian Parliament.
Rodolfo Franco-Franco
is deputy-director of programmes at the Mexican Commission for the Defence and Promotion of Human Rights. He has extensive experience in human rights advocacy projects. He has collaborated with national and international organisations on migration issues, reproductive rights and the rule of law. He co-led the project ‘Citizen-led Forensics’ in 2014, which created the first independent dna database for the identification of disappeared persons in Mexico. He holds an ma in Political Science from the University of British Columbia (2006) and a ba in International Relations from Tec de Monterrey (2004).
Gabriella Michele García
is a Political Science major at Stanford University (Class of 2024). Her research about human rights violations during the construction of the World Cup infrastructure was published through Centro para la Apertura y el Desarrollo de América Latina (cadal), which led to a campaign to heighten awareness around the issue. Additionally, she has had research published at LawFare through the Stanford-mit Healthy Elections Project regarding the United States 2020 general election. Her main interests lie between the intersection of design thinking, government, campaigns, and human rights.
Joanna Grygiel
is a research assistant and PhD candidate at the Poznań Human Rights Centre of the Institute of Law Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences. She conducts research on the compliance of national standards of human rights protection with international standards, in particular in the field of fundamental rights and freedoms, criminal proceedings and protection from torture. Since 2020 she has been a trainee attorney-at-law at the District Bar Association in Poznan. She is also human rights activist in a local group of Amnesty International Poland.
José Antonio Guevara Bermúdez
holds a law degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City and a PhD in Human Rights from the Carlos iii University of Madrid, Spain. Since
Christof Heyns
held the degrees llb and ma (Pretoria), llm (Yale) and PhD (Witwatesrand). He was Professor of Human Rights Law, Director of the Centre for Human Rights, Dean of the Faculty of Law, and Director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa at the University of Pretoria. He was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions from 2010 to 2016; and a member of the UN Human Rights Committee from 2017 to 2020. He was, with Frans Viljoen, the co-study leader and co-editor of The Impact of the United Nations Human Rights Treaties on the Domestic Level (2002). Christof authored numerous publications, with a focus on human rights in Africa and the right to life. He passed away on 28 March 2021.
Matsuda Hiromichi
is an associate professor at International Christian University, where he teaches constitutional law, international law and human rights law. He obtained his Doctor of Laws at the University of Tokyo in Japan and llm at Columbia Law School in the United States of America.
Javier Leoz Invernón
holds a PhD from the University of Zaragoza and is a staff member of ohchr.
Sarah Joseph
is a Professor of Human Rights Law at Griffith University in Brisbane. Prior to her appointment in 2020, she was the Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University for 15 years. Her expertise ranges across civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, as well as international human rights law and human rights in Australia.
O’Brien Kaaba
(llb (London), llm (Zambia), lld (unisa)) is a lecturer in the Department of Public Law, Assistant Dean Research in the School of Law, University of Zambia and a senior research fellow at the Southern African Institute for Policy and Research (saipar). O’Brien also holds a diploma in philosophy
Ibrahima Kane
is a Senegalese human rights lawyer and activist. Founding member of raddho, a Senegalese human rights organisation, he worked at Interights for 10 years as a senior lawyer in charge of the Africa programme of the organisation. Kane has collaborated closely with and litigated before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Union Commission, the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ecowas) and the Court of Justice of the East African Community (eac). Since 2007 he heads Open Society’s Africa Union Advocacy Programme. He is an author of a number of reports and articles on the African Union, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the protection of human rights by regional economic community bodies. He has also been an associate lecturer at the law faculty of the University of Essex in the United Kingdom.
Pranjali Kanel
is the programme assistant and a ba llb candidate at Kathmandu School of Law.
Anusha Kharel
is a teaching assistant at Kathmandu School of Law. She is a ba llb graduate from Kathmandu School of Law.
Merilin Kiviorg
(DPhil Oxford, mag iur Tartu) is an associate professor in international law at the University of Tartu School of Law. She obtained her doctorate as well as taught international law at the University of Oxford. She was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. She has advised governmental bodies in Estonia. She is a member of the Advisory Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief of the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe/odihr and a member of the Chancellor of Justice’s Human Rights Advisory Board in Estonia. She is a principal investigator in the Project ‘Russia and Consolidation of Regional International Law in Eurasia’. She is the author of multiple articles and books in the field of human rights, constitutional rights, and public international law.
is a senior lecturer at the Department of International Law, rudn University. She holds a PhD in Law from rudn University on the subject of strengthening the human rights treaty body system. She has been awarded the Grant of the President of Russia for state support of young scientists on the topic ‘Human Rights Treaty Body System: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’ (2018 to 2019). She published the textbook Human Rights Treaty Bodies (2nd edn, 2015) in co-authorship with Aslan Abashidze.
Miloon Kothari
is an expert on human rights and social policy, located in New Delhi and Geneva. He served from 2000 to 2008 as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing and took the lead in preparing the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-Based Evictions and Displacement. Between 2015 and 2022, he was the president of upr-Info, an independent organisation that promotes the upr process. Mr Kothari has published widely and has lectured and taught at leading academic institutions around the world. He has extensive experience in fact finding, research and training on UN human rights as a consultant with governments, UN agencies, local governments, national human rights institutions, judicial bodies, academic institutions and civil society organisations. In 2021 he was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council as Commissioner, UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.
Anna Lochhead
is a lawyer currently working at the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. She has principally worked in the area of indigenous rights, including at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Frédéric Mégret
is full professor and William Dawson Scholar at the Faculty of Law, and the co-director of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, Faculty of Law, McGill University. From 2006 to 2016 he held the Canada Research Chair on the Law of Human Rights and Legal Pluralism. Before coming to McGill, he was an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, a research associate at the European University Institute, and an attaché at the International Committee of the Red Cross. He is the editor, with Philip Alston, of the forthcoming second edition of The United Nations and Human Rights: A Critical Appraisal and the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of International Criminal Law. His research
Tess Mitchell
works in social development, with a focus on gender and youth. She has been based in West Africa for three years (currently for the UNRCO in Sierra Leone, and previously for WHO in Guinea-Bissau). She has a Masters of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights (Geneva Academy, Switzerland). The opinions expressed in the chapter she co-authored are her own and do not reflect the views of the UN or WHO.
Rachel Murray
holds the degrees llb (Leic), llm (Bristol), PhD (W England). She is Professor of International Human Rights and Director, Human Rights Implementation Centre, School of Law, University of Bristol. Rachel has experience in advising governments, ngos, nhris and regional and international organisations on human rights issues. She has a particular interest in the African human rights system, the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture, and National Human Rights Institutions. She is the author of Implementation of the Findings of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and editor of Reflections on the Implementation of Human Rights Law: Research Handbook on Implementation of Human Rights Law (with Debra Long).
Yota Negishi
is an llm and PhD holder at Waseda University in Tokyo. He engaged in research projects of comparative public law and international law as doctoral and post-doctoral research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (2013 to 2017). Dr Negishi stayed as a visiting scholar at Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg (2014 to 2017).
Merja Pentikäinen
is a lawyer and Doctor of Laws (University of Lapland, Finland) with specialisation in international law and human rights in particular. She has a des from the Graduate Institute of International Studies (Geneva). She worked for over 20 years in academia as a researcher and teacher of international law, also as
Carmelo Faleh Pérez
holds a PhD and is a professor in public international law and human rights at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and legal adviser to the Spanish Society for International Human Rights Law. He is the author of numerous publications on international human rights law.
Júlia Piazza
is an undergraduate student at São Paulo Law School of Fundação Getulio Vargas (fgv), and lead researcher for the Inter-American human rights moot court team at fgv.
Tracy Robinson
is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of the West Indies (uwi), Mona and a co-founder and co-coordinator of the Faculty of Law uwi Rights Advocacy Project (u-rap). She was a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2012 to 2015) and served as its president between 2014 and 2015.
Sergio Ruano
is a lawyer and llm from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and is a student at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. He has been a professor of International Law at the Universidad Católica de Colombia and Lecturer at Universidad Nacional. Sergio has principally worked in Human Rights and the transitional justice field.
Carmen Rosa Rueda Castañón
is former secretary of the Human Rights Committee’s working group on communications and member of the Spanish Society for International Human Rights Law.
Harald Christian Scheu
was educated at the University of Salzburg (Dr Iur, 1995, Mag Phil, 1996) and the University of Prague (PhD, 1997, Doc, 2006). He teaches and conducts research in the fields of international and European law and international human
Katarzyna Sękowska-Kozłowska
PhD in law, is an assistant professor and the head of Poznań Human Rights Centre of the Institute of Law Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences. She is lecturer in anti-discrimination law at swps University; member of the Scientific Board of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Cultural Gender and Identity Studies of Adam Mickiewicz University; expert of the European Commission and Council of Europe. Her field of research is international human rights law with a focus on gender issues.
Surabhi Sharma
holds the degree llm in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. She worked as a Lecturer at Jindal Global Law School and subsequently worked with vulnerable communities, particularly in providing legal representation to asylum seekers.
Aleksandr Solntsev
is an associate professor and deputy head of the Department of International Law, rudn University. He studied at rudn University and University of Amsterdam, holds PhD in Law from rudn University. He is the author of more than 700 publications. He developed the innovative course ‘Human Rights and Environment’ and published a handbook Human Rights and Environment (in 3 editions, 2021).
Łukasz Szoszkiewicz
PhD in law, is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law and Administration of Adam Mickiewicz University. His research is focused on the areas of artificial intelligence and human rights as well as children’s rights. Since 2018 he has been actively engaged in the preparation of the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty and currently leads one of its follow-up projects on immigration detention of children.
is a Colombian Lawyer with PhDin economics (University of Amiens). He is Professor of Constitutional Law at the National University of Colombia. Member, senior researcher at the Center of Studies “Dejusticia” and member of the International Commission of Jurists. He was a member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 2015–2022, executive director of Dejusticia 2005–2015, and deputy justice at the Constitutional Court 1994–2005. He has written extensively on transitional justice, human rights, judicial system and drug policy.
Frans Viljoen
holds the degrees llb, ma and lld (Pretoria) and llm (Cambridge). He is Professor of International Human Rights Law and Director of the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria. He is the author of International human rights law in Africa. He was, with Christof Heyns, the co-study leader and co-editor of The Impact of the United Nations Human Rights Treaties on the Domestic Level (2002).
Ravi Prakash Vyas
is an assistant professor of International Law and Human Rights at Kathmandu School of Law (ksl). He holds a Master’s in Human Rights and Democratisation from the University of Sydney and an undergraduate degree in law from India. He is member of the Global Campus Council and programme coordinator of the Asia Pacific Master’s in Human Rights and Democratisation at ksl. He has previously worked as a consultant (proceedings) at India’s National Human Rights Commission. He is also managing editor of the Kathmandu School of Law Review.
Negishi Yota
is associate professor (Public International Law), Seinan Gakuin University, Fukuoka, Japan (2017–present).