John Strawson is a colonial legal historian with contemporary interests in International law, the Middle East and Islamic Law. He has written on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Islamic law in colonial India, Law and September 11 2011, the Iraq war and the Arab Spring. His current interests include conflict resolution and the transitional process in the Middle East and the implications of colonial rule for current images of Islamic law.
He has held visiting positions at the International Institute for Social Sciences in Netherlands (now of the Erasmus University Rotterdam), the Institute of Law at Birzeit University, Palestine and was visiting professor of law at the International Islamic University Malaysia in 2007. He has held research grants from the British Council, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the British Academy. He broadcasts on international law, the Middle East and Islamic Law.
His publications include (as editor) Law after Ground Zero (GlassHouse/Routldege-Cavendish 2002), Partitioning Palestine: Legal Fundamentalism in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (Pluto Press, 2010) and co-editor (with Barry Collins) of Iraq and Human Rights a special issue of the International Journal on Contemporary Iraqi Studies, (Vol. 5. No. 3 (2011). He is currently working in a book on the history of Islamic Law in India. For more information click here.
Sally Holt received her MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights from the University of London’s School of Advanced Studies in 1998. She has since held a variety of positions in intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), NGOs and UK universities working at the intersection of human rights, international diplomacy, conflict, and development.
Before joining the CHRC in January 2013, she was an Adviser to the Initiative on Quiet Diplomacy overseeing the development of practical resource materials and supporting engagement with conflict parties to address problems that impact negatively on human rights and commonly underlie tensions and conflict within societies. Previously she managed a research programme for the Aga Khan Foundation (UK) on the social inclusion of Muslim populations in Europe. She has also been a Research Fellow in the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford where she undertook policy-oriented research for governments and IGOs on peacebuilding and long-term security and reintegration challenges. She has served as a Legal Officer for the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) and also recently assisted the current HCNM in developing Guidelines on Integration of Diverse Societies. Sally has undertaken consultancies for the UN OHCHR on minority rights in Central Asia and the UN FAO on land tenure and conflict. Her most recent research and publications relate primarily to diversity management, social integration, and conflict prevention.
Kalliopi graduated with an LLB from the University of Essex in 2001 and she completed her LLM in Public International Law at University College London in 2002. She was awarded a PhD in International Law from King's College London in 2007. Kalliopi joined the CHRC as a Research Fellow in December 2012. Prior to joining the CHRC, she worked as a lawyer specialising in human rights and a lecturer at the Hellenic Air Force Academy, the University of Macedonia, the International Hellenic University and other universities in Greece.
Dr. Chainoglou is an appointed expert on Cultural Trends and Policies in Europe (COMPENDIUM, Council of Europe) and an expert on Advancing the Implementation of Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security in Western Balkans (UNWOMEN CSEE). Her research interests focus on international peace and security, international protection of human rights (at global and regional level), human rights education, cultural rights, cultural diplomacy, intercultural dialogue, intercultural education, women's rights, migrants' rights, youth policies, the rights of Roma and the rights of people with disabilities. She is currently working on an interdisciplinary research project which brings together issues of media literacy, human rights awareness and the evolving concept of the European active citizenship. For more information click here.
Barry Collins teaches Law and Society, Human Rights, Employment Law and Tort law. His main interest is in the field of legal theory, particularly as it relates tothemes of nationalism, constitutionalism and conflict resolution. His publications to date have brought perspectives from legal and psychoanalytical theory to bear on Irish Constitutional Law and on conflict resolution in Northern Ireland and the Middle East. He is also currently working on a PhD around these topics.
In 2003, he was a visiting scholar at the Socio-Legal Research Centre at the Griffith University, Australia, and he has organised conferences around the theme of Law and Cultural Studies at the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Spain.
Siraj Sait is a graduate of University of Madras (India), University of London and Harvard Law School. His areas of expertise are human rights, gender and land/housing, refugee and post-conflict studies and Islamic law. A lawyer by training, he has held served several key posts such as State Prosecutor on Human Rights in India, and has been closely associated with several grassroots campaigns and NGOs, as a consultant for Minority Rights Group International and as a trustee of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. Since 2006, he has been member of the International Advisory Board of the Global Land Tool Network www.gltn.net. He is also on the MTSIP Review Panel of UN-HABITAT and the World Bank’s project evaluation committee.
Sait has been a consultant to UNHCR, UNICEF and recently served as legal officer, Land Tenure and Property Administration Section, Shelter Branch at the UN-HABITAT, he was also the gender officer for the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) responsible for the Mechanism on Gendering Land Tools. He was the organiser of the Round Table on Gendering Tools at the World Urban Forum (Vancouver, June 2006) and the UN Expert Group Meeting on Islamic Land Law. He has been part of several research institutions such as the Refugee Research Centre and the Centre on Human Rights in Conflict. He has published widely in the fields of human rights, gender issues and Islamic studies. He was co-Moderator of E-Forum on Gender Criteria on Land Tools in October 2008.
Jérémie Gilbert is a Reader in Law at the University of East London, United Kingdom. His main area of research is on international human rights law, and more particularly the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples. He has published various articles and book chapters on the rights of indigenous peoples, looking in particular at their right to land. His latest monograph is 'Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights under International Law: From Victims to Actors' (Brill, 2007). He is a member of Minority Rights Group International’s Advisory Board on their Legal Cases Programme, a board member of the International Work Group on Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) and also regularly works with the Forest Peoples’ Programme. He was one of the invited independent experts for United Nations Expert Seminar on Treaties and other arrangements between States and Indigenous Peoples. His current work focuses on the protection of nomadic peoples under international law, minority rights in Africa, and the interaction between business and human rights law.
Edel Hughes graduated from University College Cork, Ireland, in 2002 with a BCL (Law and French). She was awarded an LLM and PhD degrees in International Human Rights Law from the National University of Ireland, Galway in 2003 and 2009 respectively. Prior to joining the University of East London, she was a lecturer in law at the School of Law, University of Limerick, between 2006 and 2011. Edel has worked as a lecturer with Amnesty International (Irish Section) and in recent years has engaged in research and advocacy work for various non-governmental human rights organisations including Relatives for Justice and the Kurdish Human Rights Project.
Dr Annalisa Meloni graduated with a LLB in English and European Laws from the University of Essex in 1998. She then studied at University College London where she received her LLM in 1999 and her PhD in 2005. Her research interests focus on the European Union's laws and policies relating to external border controls.
Dimitris joined the School of Law and Social Sciences in January 2012. He also acts as a human rights consultant for various law offices and private and public bodies. He is a Fellow at the European Public Law Organisation in Athens and book review editor for the European Review of Public Law.
Prior to taking up the post at the UEL,he worked for the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism at City University, London and the Centre for Freedom of the Media at the University of Sheffield. He read Law at the University of Sheffield Hallam and completed a DPhil in Law at the University of Durham. For more information click here.
Michael is interested in the relationship between religion and human rights with particular focus on questions of historical injustice and accountability. Michael’s doctoral work at the University of Sydney was on the religious dimensions of the Aboriginal Reconciliation Process in Australia. His article “Aboriginal reconciliation as religious politics: Secularisation in Australia”, Australian Journal of Political Science, 2005 , won the 2006 Mayer Prize from the Australian Political Science Association. Michael is now working on a comparative project regarding the involvement of the Catholic Church in human rights and transitional justice initiatives. In 2012 he completed field-work in Spain supported by a UEL Early Career Research Accelerator Grant. In December 2012 he presented a paper based on his field work at Columbia University’s Centre for the Study of Human Rights conference “Local Memory, Global Ethics, Justice: The Politics of Historical Dialogue in Contemporary Society”.
Johanna Herman received her MA in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International And Public Affairs in 2006, with a concentration in human rights. She holds a BA in Social and Political Sciences from Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. She has worked in various capacities for UN-HABITAT and the United Nations Development Programme in Japan, Afghanistan and New York and has work experience with a number of international NGOs.
Her areas of research interests include transitional justice, peacebuilding and human rights. Her most recent research is on the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia, focusing on the participation of victims as civil parties. She has also written on peacebuilding in Liberia and DDR and transitional justice. She has co-authored War, Conflict and Human Rights with her colleagues at the Centre and co-edited Peacebuilding and Rule of Law in Africa: Just Peace? and Surviving Field Research: Working in Violent and Difficult Situations.
For more information about Johanna click here.
Farid studied his BA in law (2004), at Aleppo University, Syria. He completed his LLM in International Law and Criminal Justice in 2010 at the University of East London, UK. His doctoral Project is entitled "An examination of the prosecution strategy at the ICC in the context of establishing the legitimacy of international legal institutions." This Project explores the confines of the Prosecutorial discretion of the ICC Prosecutor through critically analysing the criteria of the exercise of the discretionary function, as laid down in the ICC Statute during all stages of initiating investigations and prosecutions. Also, it sheds light on the Prosecutor's power in securing cooperation from international actors to give effect to his or her discretionary decisions. The research will be framed within the tension between law and politics through discussing critically the objectivity theory of international law and international principle. It further examines the relationship between international law and international politics in the context of the prosecutorial discretion of international crimes. The Project will be mainly focusing on the Darfur situation as a case study .
Mertkan's PhD project is entitled: "Re-thinking about the universality of human rights and the reflections of the human rights discourse on the identity issue in Cyprus". His research aims to interrogate universality of the human rights discourse in the light of the critical legal theory. The case study will be focusing on the human rights discourses in two parts of Cyprus. Cyprus conflict is one of the frozen conflicts, and it is sustained, in addition to many other factors also with the antagonism in many spheres to the “other” side. From this perspective human rights discourses in Cyprus will be analyzed in order to provide a basis to make the critic of the universality. While doing this, the identity and the human rights discourses will be elaborated together, in order to understand if the human rights are “universal” or it is merely “community centric”.
Tim Hall is a member of the CHRC and Senior Lecturer in School of Law and Social Sciences where he undertakes research and teaches on justice, rights, ethics and the politics of work. He is actively engaged with local community organisations such as London Citizens, an alliance of over 150 religious and civic groups working together on campaigns relating to issues of common concern such as work, security and housing. He is also linked in to extensive networks of civil society organisatons and movements working with vulnerable people across the UK.
For more information about Tim please click here.
Despoina-Betty Kaklamanidou is Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Law and Social Sciences at UEL. She has been teaching Film History and Theory at the Film Studies Department at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece since 2005. She is the author of Genre, Gender and the Effects of Neoliberalism: The New Millennium Hollywood Rom Com (London: Routledge, 2013), the co-editor of The 21st Century Superhero: Essays on Gender, Genre and Globalization in Film (USA: McFarland, 2010) and the author of two Greek books on film adaptation and the Hollywood romantic comedy. In 2011 she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research in New York. She is member of the editorial board of The Journal of Popular Romance Studies, member of the Hellenic Semiotics Society, and member of the Society for Cinema & Media Studies (SCMS).Her research interests include film and human rights, film as educational tool, adaptation theory, genre and gender, and contemporary Greek cinema. She is currently conducting research on how film can be used as teaching tool for the dissemination of citizenship issues.
Ellie Smith, is an international human rights lawyer and researcher with 10 years of experience in the field of justice for survivors of torture, reparations and victims’ rights. Between 2002 and 2010 she was Lead Researcher and expert legal advisor to the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, and before that she was Head of Research with the UK Immigration Advisory Service. She is a member of the Victims' Rights Working Group to the Coalition for the International Criminal Court and the Expert Advisory Panel to the British Home Office on the Trafficking of Women. Ellie guest lectures at the Human Rights Centre at Newcastle University and SOAS. She holds a Degree in law from Cambridge University (1992) and a Masters Degree in Law from LSE (2000). Her current research interests centre around rehabilitation as a legal remedy for survivors of torture, legal/clinical barriers to accessing justice, and how issues of justice are understood by survivors. Her previous publications include 'A Remedy for Torture Survivors in International Law: Interpreting Rehabilitation'.
Dr. Ruth Abril Stoffels, Visiting Researcher, June-July 2011. Dr. Abril is Reader at the Universidad Cardenal Herrera CEU of Valencia. During her stay at the Centre Dr. Abril is conducting research on women and girls in peacebuilding operations. Her work on humanitarian assistance is internationally recognised and has won the Paul Reuter Award in 2003.
Dr. Elena Lopez-Almansa Beaus, Visiting Researcher, November-December 2009. During her stay at the Centre Dr. Lopez Almansa Beaus conducted research on the iligal exploitation of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Dr. Carmen Draghici, Leverhulme Visiting Fellow, January 2008-January 2009. During her stay at the Centre Dr. Draghici undertook the research project on 'The search for a fair balance between the imperative of national security and the protection of human rights in the recent caselaw of the European Courts concerning the ‘blacklists’ of alleged terrorists'. She also coordinated the organisation of the Interdisciplinary Research Seminar on Counterterrorism, Human Rights and International Legality, which gathered perspectives from scholars, practitioners, human rights activists. The report of the event is available here.
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