2025 European Pro Bono Week

Atanas Politov is Dentons’ Europe Director of Positive Impact and Pro Bono, based in the firm’s Budapest office. He joined the firm in September 2016 to coordinate Dentons’ pro bono work across continental Europe. Atanas was also heading the Dentons Europe Diversity & Inclusion Committee and the law firm’s ESG program. Before joining Dentons, Atanas was PILnet’s Director for Programs and was responsible for managing PILnet’s pro bono and access to justice efforts globally. Previously, he developed large-scale anti-discrimination and legal aid reform projects in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans and oversaw the development of PILnet’s pro bono efforts in China, Hungary, Russia, Italy, Germany, Spain, France, and Poland. Atanas has a Law degree from Sofia University, Bulgaria, and an LLM’02 from Columbia Law School, NYC.

Gina Romero, a national of Colombia, was appointed as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association and took up her functions in April 2024.
Prior to her appointment, Ms. Romero led several initiatives for the promotion and defense of democracy and the rule of law. She is one of the founders and served for nearly 10 years as Executive Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Network for Democracy(Redlad). In this position, she also served as Secretariat of the Civil Society Pillar of the Community of Democracies. In these capacities, she has had direct relations with multiple stakeholders (including governments, civil society, academic, and private sector representatives) in 19 countries in the American Continent, and at least 35 in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Kerttu Willamo works as a Civic Space Project Officer at the European Civic Forum (ECF), a pan-European network of nearly 100 civil society organisations across Europe working to protect civic space, enable civic participation and build civil dialogue for more equality, solidarity and democracy. Kerttu’s background is in human rights advocacy and activist movements. She is coordinating ECF’s work on civic space monitoring and the protection of civic actors and human rights defenders.