Legal Research Panel

INTERIGHTS has established a Legal Research Panel with the aim of providing high quality research to support our innovative and ever increasing litigation work and related activities. The excellence of INTERIGHTS’ legal work is critical to our reputation and access to quality legal research is a core resource for our legal team. Panellists will assist INTERIGHTS’ lawyers primarily through in depth legal research on complex or emerging legal issues arising principally, but not exclusively, in our litigation. 

INTERIGHTS gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Allen & Overy in establishing the Panel.

Panellists:
Dr Nadia Bernaz
Japhet Biegon
Dr Gauthier de Beco
Ebenezer Durojaye
Valentina Falco
Dr Ryan Goss
Dr Conor McCarthy
Dr Aoife Nolan
Dr Eva Rieter
Professor Jeremy Sarkin
Dr Debbie Sayers
Lucy Series
Anna Sledzinska-Simon
Fernand de Varennes

Dr Nadia Bernaz

Dr. Nadia Bernaz is Lecturer in Law at Middlesex University (London), Programme leader of the pioneering MA Human Rights and Business and Adjunct Lecturer of the Irish Centre for Human Rights (NUI Galway, Republic of Ireland). She has extensive teaching and research experience in comparative constitutional law, public international law, international criminal law and human rights law. She is the author of Le droit international et la peine de mort (International Law and the Death Penalty, La Documentation française, 2008) and the co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of International Criminal Law (2011).

Japhet Biegon

Japhet Biegon is a Researcher and Doctoral Candidate at the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is also an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya. He holds a Master of Laws (LLM) Degree with specialisation in human rights and democratisation in Africa from the University of Pretoria; a Diploma in the International Protection of Human Rights from the Institute of Human Rights, Abo Akademi University, Finland; and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from Moi University, Kenya. His areas of interest and expertise include: the African human rights system; gender justice and equality; and international humanitarian and criminal law with a focus on Africa.

Dr Gauthier de Beco

Dr Gauthier de Beco (Ph.D. in Law, University of Louvain; LL.M., University of Nottingham) is currently post-doctoral researcher at the University of Leuven where he does research on national human rights institutions, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the European Convention on Human Rights. He taught previously at the University of Louvain and University College London and worked for the International Criminal Court and the Belgian public administration. He has written two books as well as many articles and scientific reports in the field of human rights. He is also a regular consultant to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and several NGOs.

Ebenezer Durojaye

Ebenezer Durojaye is a research fellow in the Department of Constitutional Law and Philosophy of Law at the University of the Free State, South Africa. His areas of interest include focusing on human rights issues raised by access to HIV/AIDS treatment, intersection between gender inequality and HIV/AIDS response in Africa and adolescent sexual and reproductive rights in Africa. He is one of the Independent Experts of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights for the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of People Living with HIV (PLHIV) and those at Risk, Vulnerable to and Affected by HIV.

Valentina Falco

Valentina Falco is a currently completing a PhD in Law at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. She holds a degree in Law summa cum laude from the University of Milan, and a Master of Research (MRes) in Law from the EUI.  Her research interests focus on the applicability of international humanitarian law and human rights law to military operations and non-state actors. A former fellow in the “European Foreign and Security Policy Studies” Programme, she has been a human rights consultant for the European Commission, and has collaborated, among others, with the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate and the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union.

Dr Ryan Goss

Dr Ryan Goss is Lecturer in Law at the ANU College of Law at the Australian National University. Ryan teaches public law and human rights law. He holds a masters (BCL) and a doctorate (DPhil) in law from the University of Oxford undertaken with the support of a Rhodes scholarship. Ryan taught at Oxford at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels as Junior Research Fellow in Law at Lincoln College from 2011 to 2013. Ryan's research work focuses on the European Court of Human Rights' criminal fair trial rights case law and on aspects of national security law.

Dr Conor McCarthy

Conor McCarthy holds both a PhD and a master’s degree from Cambridge University and attended Harvard University as a Kennedy Scholar. He has published widely on matters of international humanitarian law, human rights law and international criminal law. He will publish a book, based on his doctoral research, entitled Reparations and Victim Support in the International Criminal Court with Cambridge University Press in 2011. He has also previously worked at a number of international organizations, including the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court, and has provided consultancy advice on various matters of international law in a private capacity.

Dr Aoife Nolan

Aoife Nolan is Professor of International Human Rights Law at Nottingham University. She has written and published extensively in the area of human rights, particularly in relation to economic and social rights and children's rights, as well as on constitutional law. She has worked with and acted as an expert advisor to a wide range of international and national organisations and bodies working on human rights issues.

Dr Eva Rieter

Dr Eva Rieter is an expert on the law and procedures developed by the regional and international human rights adjudicators dealing with individual complaints, with a special focus on the right to life and the prohibition of torture and cruel treatment. She lectures public international law and human rights law at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Professor Jeremy Sarkin

Professor Jeremy Sarkin is admitted to practice as attorney in the USA and South Africa. He is Chairperson-Rapporteur of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. He is an Extraordinary Professor of Law at the University of South Africa (UNISA). He served as National Chairperson of the Human Rights Committee of South Africa from 1994-1998. He served as an acting judge in 2002 and 2003 in the Cape High Court. He has worked on constitutional and transitional issues in many countries.  He has published 14 books and over 200 journal articles on international law and human rights issues. His most recent books are “Reconciliation in Divided Societies: Finding Common Ground” (2007), “Human Rights in African Prisons” (2008), “Reparations for Colonial Genocides” (2009); and “Germany’s Genocide of the Herero” (2011).

Dr Debbie Sayers

Debbie Sayers is a qualified Solicitor from the UK who has a Masters Degree in Human Rights Law from University College, London and a PhD in Criminal Justice and Human Rights in the EU from the University of Essex. Debbie runs her own legal research business www.interalia.org.uk and has also been a member of Matrix chamber’s research panel since 2002. Debbie’s work has involved undertaking policy work for some of the UK’s leading NGOs, carrying out complex research for high profile national and international cases and drafting speeches and legal papers with some of the UK’s leading human rights lawyers.

Lucy Series

Lucy Series is a doctoral candidate at the University of Exeter, Department of Law. Her research focuses on legal capacity and social care law in relation to the empowerment of adults with intellectual disabilities and older adults. Prior to commencing her doctorate, Lucy worked in a wide variety of roles in health and social care. She has a BA in Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Oxford, and an MSc from the University of Bristol. Lucy provides pro bono and paid consultancy and training on legal capacity and human rights issues, and writes at blog at http://thesmallplaces.blogspot.com.

Anna Sledzinska-Simon

Anna Sledzinska-Simon is a doctor in law. She holds the MA in Law and International Relations (University of Wroclaw, Poland); LL.M. and S.J.D. in Comparative Constitutional Law (Central European University). She has been a fellow researcher at the Columbia University in New York, Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg and European University Institute in Florence. Currently, she teaches human rights, European law and constitutional law at the College of Public Service and the Military Academy of Land Forces in Wroclaw. She is a member in FRALEX and since 2007 works closely with the Polish Helsinki Human Rights Foundation in various projects. Her research involves human rights, with particular emphasis on equality and gender law. In 2010 she published in Polish Political rights of Public Servants, edited Rights of Transsexual Persons. Model solutions and the situation in Poland and co-edited Precedent in Polish legal system (with M. Wyrzykowski) and The Society towards ‘Other’. The category of Other in social science and public life (with L. Dziewiecka-Bokun).

Fernand de Varennes

Dr Fernand de Varennes is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law and currently a Visiting Professor at the Maldives National University’s Faculty of Shari’ah and Law, in the Maldives, as well as at Peking University Faculty of Law in the Peoples’ Republic of China. He has published five books and some 150 scientific articles and reports in 25 languages on minority rights, human rights in international law, and the prevention of ethnic conflicts. He has acted as an expert for many NGOs around the world, as well as for international organisations such as the OSCE, the UN, and UNESCO.