2023 Global Forum

Abou Sene, born in The Gambia. Fishermen and activist involved in the fight against Chinese fishmeal plants and illegal overfishing in the country, as well as against female genital mutilation. In November 2020, he left Gambia for Spain in a wooden canoe forced by persecution. Now living in Sevilla, Abou is an asylum seeker hoping to continue his activism in Europe. Protagonist of the “Stolen Fish” documentary by Gosia Juszczak. (Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12exZ6C7MNI)

Amer Alkayed is an Irish Palestinian lawyer, advocate, and vice president and co-founder of Ravdanur Foundation. Amer is the former director and founder of Kent5 consultancy, founder of Mayday sustainable development, and former director Solve Consultancy.  Amer is the co-founder and steering committee member of Global Refugee Led Network MENA chapter.

Having an educational background in Literature and Human Resources, Agnes worked for a  major private philanthropic foundation for 15 years and was a team leader at the Grants Department. In her Senior Operations Officer role at PILnet, she serves as a contact for the European Pro Bono Alliance and operates the Hungarian Clearinghouse.

She is also responsible for smoothly running and managing day-to-day office operations, communications, HR issues and assisting in other program projects.

Fedor Belykh is a senior associate at Latham & Watkins, in their Moscow office. His practice focuses primarily on dispute resolution, special situations and distressed assets, construction, and project development. Fedor has significant experience advising on large international and domestic Russian disputes, acting in litigation and arbitration matters in Russia and abroad (SCC, ICC, LCIA, HKIAC, etc; litigation in England, France, Baltic countries, Cyprus, BVI, Curacao, Panama, Costa-Rica, etc.), conducting corporate investigations, anti-fraud investigations, representing clients in criminal, antimonopoly, and administrative matters.

Dolores Bentolila is a senior associate at White & Case in the Geneva office. Dolores’ experience includes representing sovereign and private clients in all major arbitral forums including ICC and ICSID, in a wide range of industries including construction, telecommunications, oil & gas, tobacco and the food industry.  In addition, Dolores regularly advises sovereign and private clients on WTO state to state dispute settlement matters and public international law issues affecting the operation of international trade agreements, including free trade agreements. Dolores has also been active in White & Case’s pro bono work in the area of international environmental law and has been involved with projects of the United Nations.

Julie Broome has been Director of Ariadne since 2016. She has over 20 years of experience in the non-profit and philanthropic sectors, with a particular focus on human rights and transitional justice. She served as Director of Programmes at the Sigrid Rausing Trust, where she oversaw grantmaking to human rights organizations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas, and previously managed technical rule of law assistance programmes in Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia with the CEELI Institute in Prague and the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative. She holds a Ph.D. in Politics and International Studies from SOAS, University of London, and an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex.

Andrew Barton is a senior associate in the pro bono team at Herbert Smith Freehills, based in London. Andrew has responsibility for the firm’s access to justice practice in the UK, US and EMEA. He has been a part of the pro bono team since 2017 and spent 2020 based in Hong Kong leading the firm’s pro bono work in Asia, which he continues to coordinate from the UK.

Stacey Cram is a passionate advocate with over a decade of experience in public policy development and international diplomacy, including on justice reform and human rights. She is currently the Policy Director of Namati where she leads global policy and advocacy portfolios designed to advance access to justice, including the Justice For All campaign focused on increasing financing and protection for grassroots justice defenders. Stacey is originally from Scotland, a country whose legal aid tradition dates back to 1424, she has lived in Nigeria, New York, and London, and is now based in Oakland, California.

Scott Cummings is Robert Henigson Professor of Legal Ethics at the UCLA School of Law, where he teaches and writes about the legal profession, legal ethics, access to justice, local government law. He is the founding faculty director of the UCLA Program on Legal Ethics and the Profession, which promotes empirical research and innovative programming on the challenges facing lawyers in the twenty-first century, and a long-time member of the UCLA David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. In 2021, Professor Cummings was selected as the Fulbright Distinguished Chair at the European University Institute and a fellow at the Stanford Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences to study the role of lawyers in strengthening the rule of law.

Chara de Lacey leads Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s work to secure legal accountability for social audit failings within the organisation’s Corporate Legal Accountability Programme. Chara has worked in the human rights sector for ten years, including prior experience with Advocates for International Development and the International Bar Association. Chara is a UK-qualified lawyer and holds an LLM degree in Law, Globalisation and Development. She is on the Executive Committee of Action4Justice.

Fabio de Sa e Silva is Assistant Professor of International Studies and Wick Cary Professor of Brazilian Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He studies the social organization and the political impact of law and justice in Brazil and comparatively. An institution builder, Fabio co-directs the OU Center for Brazil Studies, is a member of the Executive Committee of the Brazilian Studies Association, and a Trustee of the Law and Society Association (LSA), Class of 2023. In 2018, he was recognized as the Outstanding Faculty at the Department.

Fabio has a multidisciplinary background with training in law, social sciences, and public policy. He holds a BA in legal studies from the University of Sao Paulo, where he received a prestigious CAPES fellowship for studies in law and society. He also attained a Master of Laws at the University of Brasilia Law School and a Ph.D. in Law, Policy, and Society at Northeastern University as a CAPES-Fulbright fellow.

Jonathan Davis is the Assistant Director of PILnet’s office in Hong Kong. He began his legal career in the corporate immigration sector, where he spent over a decade working as a US and Irish immigration lawyer in New York, London, Dublin and Hong Kong. Jonathan’s human rights experience includes a bonded labor abolition project in South Asia with the International Justice Mission, and more recently, a year at Justice Centre Hong Kong providing legal support to refugees and asylum seekers. In addition to a JD degree, Jonathan has an LL.M. from the School of Oriental and African Studies and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Human Rights Law from the National Law School of India. He is qualified to practice in Hong Kong, California, Ireland and England & Wales.

Prof. Dr. Diane Desierto is Professor of Law and Global Affairs, and LLM Faculty Director, at Notre Dame Law School, with a joint appointment at the Keough School of Global Affairs of the University of Notre Dame (USA), specializing in international law and human rights. She holds a parallel appointment as Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the Philippines Judicial Academy of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, and is active as Counsel at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, International Criminal Court, and Southeast Asian agencies and tribunals. Professor Desierto was one of the Expert drafters for the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, the pending Draft UN Convention on the Right to Development, and the 2019 Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration.

Sharon is a human rights activist involved in the struggle for social justice. She worked with young people fleeing from their communities due to apartheid state repression. She was one of the founding members of the Treatment Action Campaign and later worked for the AIDS Consortium in the struggle for affordable treatment for people living with HIV and AIDS, and later against AIDS denialism of the South African government. Before joining Lawyers for Human Rights Sharon worked for Doctors Without Borders, as the founding Director establishing the MSF Southern Africa section. She has a bachelor of arts degree.

Ana María Enríquez is the Executive Director of Human Rights Funders Network and leads the organization’s efforts to resource human rights movements around the world. An intersectional feminist with expertise in gender and environmental justice, she has 20 years of experience working with global private and public foundations, and bilateral and multilateral organizations, including Global Fund for Women, Urgent Action Fund, Prospera, UN Women’s Fund for Gender Equality, and Ford Foundation. Fluent in Spanish, French, and English, Ana María is based in her home country of Colombia.

Katerina is a human rights legal expert, who for over 20 years works on legal and policy initiatives to protect civic freedoms.  As the Executive Director of the ECNL since 2012, she leads the only regional organisation in Europe focused entirely on law and policy that affect civil society. Katerina has been with ECNL through the phase of transition from a branch office to an independent and established European organization now based in the Hague.  She led the move of the office from Hungary and the Netherlands and currently works with her team to provide guidance to CSOs on relocation and registration practices.

Under her leadership ECNL broadened its expertise to respond to new trends impacting on the non-profit sector (e.g., securitization and counter-terrorism) while continuing to address challenges in public participation and the right of peaceful assembly. She has spoken at different forums to reflect on various civic space issues e.g., at TEDx event, EU Parliament hearing, launch of Community of Democracies’ Democracy and Security Dialogue Initiative. Katerina engages with the European Union, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the UN Human Rights Council and works to strengthen international standards to safeguard freedoms. She is member of the OSCE/OIDHR Panel on Freedom of Assembly and of Association and the Council of Europe Expert Council on NGO Law. She also volunteers her time in the board of several organizations.

Jonathan’s Business and Human Rights practice covers various sectors, in multiple locations around the world. He regularly advises multinationals on supply chain Human Rights issues including domestic and international reporting obligations; legislative changes; identification and mapping of risks; due diligence systems; disclosure and traceability; and escalation procedures. Well known for Modern Slavery advice, he co-lead the team commissioned by the Qatari Government to report independently into alleged slavery and human rights abuses in the 2020 World Cup construction. He co-lead the DLA Piper team producing a Model Contract for Domestic Migrant Workers alongside the US State Department. He has advised on prisoners’ rights/compulsory rehabilitation, sexual harassment post #MeToo, gender pay reporting obligations, and disengagement following  LGBTQ criminalisation.

Dr. Laurene Graziani holds a Ph.D. in Law and an interdisciplinary Master of Advanced Studies in Children’s Rights (France/Switzerland). She is an international consultant and has 15 years of experience conducting research and designing training programs. She is occasionally teaching at the university and presenting at conferences. Laurene is particularly interested in interdisciplinary approaches to children’s rights and access to justice. She wrote several articles, including “Access to justice: a fundamental right for all children”, in Liefaard T. and Sloth-Nielsen J., The United Convention on the Rights of the Child. Taking Stock after 25 years and looking ahead, Brill/Nijhoff, 2016.

Toby Greenfield joined PILnet in 2018 and now serves as the Director for Development and Communications based in the New York office. She is involved in creating and implementing PILnet’s development and communication strategy and responsible for managing the development process for foundation and government grants. Prior to joining PILnet, Toby worked for the SUNY Center for International Development as a Communications Coordinator and for the UN’s International Organization for Migration as a Communications Fellow. Previously, she spent 16 years in the private sector working in strategy and planning for television networks. Toby has a Master’s in Public Administration, concentrating in Nonprofit Management and Global Policy, from Rockefeller College, part of University at Albany, and a Bachelor’s of Science from Syracuse University.

Leanne Govindsamy is a human rights lawyer working towards social and environmental justice. As head of the Corporate, Accountability and Transparency Programme at the Centre for Environmental Rights, she utilizes legal advocacy and other tools to promote and protect constitutional rights and values through corporate accountability and transparency.

Amy leads the Orrick pro bono practice across the UK, Europe, and Asia, collaboratively developing high-impact pro bono projects that use the law as a tool for social change and development in areas such as human rights, rule of law, and access to justice.

Amy also contributes to the continued development of the pro bono sector in the UK and Europe, helping to lead on initiatives such as the UK Collaborative Plan for Pro Bono and the European Pro Bono Initiative.

Amy has many years’ experience advising the private legal sector on the strategic development and management of pro bono programs across a number of jurisdictions. An Australian qualified lawyer, Amy holds graduate and post-graduate degrees in the areas of law, human rights, international development, and psychology.

Dr. Saydia Gulrukh is a journalist, researcher and feminist blogger. She has been involved with the labor movements in Bangladesh for the past two decades. She blogs at thotkata.com.

Charlie Holt works as legal counsel for campaigns at Greenpeace International, where he leads the organization’s SLAPP resilience strategy. Until 2019 his work focused on the US, where he worked on aggressive large-scale SLAPPs targeting Greenpeace and helped set up the anti-SLAPP coalition Protect the Protest, and since then he has been working on building SLAPP resilience in Europe through the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE). He also advises EnglishPEN on UK campaign strategy – including the response to SLAPPs in the UK. Charlie is a member of the Bar of England & Wales and holds an LLM degree in international human rights law from Northwestern Law School in the USA.

Zaid Hydari is a human rights lawyer with over 10 years of experience in refugee law, international humanitarian assistance, and development. Holding a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, Zaid served as a legal adviser and unit coordinator with a refugee legal aid provider in Istanbul from 2010-2014. He co-founded the Refugee Solidarity Network (RSN), a US-based non-profit focused on refugee legal protection and capacity development in key host countries. As the Executive Director of RSN he has lead projects in Turkey, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, and elsewhere. Zaid teaches International Refugee Law & Policy at Fordham Law School as an adjunct and is a member of the International Human Rights Committee of the NYC Bar Association.

Khadija Juma is a young feminist and a passionate individual based in Kenya, Lamu County. She is a journalist by profession and a human rights defender.

Polish film director based in Madrid, graduate of Andrzej Wajda Film School in Warsaw. In her work, Gosia focuses on minorities, migration and borders. STOLEN FISH, her award-winning documentary, was highlighted by VICE Magazine among ten most radical films of Sheffield Doc/Fest in the UK.

Gosia is also a journalist, translator and public speaker. She wrote about such underreported issues as the evictions of Kenya’s Sengwer community’s or the Nubian minority struggle in Kenya. She’s a regular contributor to Le Monde diplomatique and Novara Media, where she publishes human rights stories, such as “Cargo Women of Melilla”, a take on a slave-like work of Moroccan women on the Southern EU border. Former Human Rights observer in the Middle East and co-author of the book “All Quiet in the West Bank”. https://storyhunter.com/gosia-juszczak

Özgür is the Director of Pro Bono for Europe for DLA Piper managing a high-volume pro bono program in 19 countries serving more than 2000 attorneys. She also leads on DLA Piper’s work on “Access to Justice and Technology”. Özgür is a scholar of corporate social responsibility with a focus on human rights and investment with a PhD from Lancaster University. She worked as an international lawyer with extensive experience in project finance and she is Member of Istanbul Bar.

Jinmei Liu is the director-general of Friends of Nature and currently based in Beijing. She has worked as the head of the law and policy project of Friends of Nature from 2018 to 2021. Jinmei has more than 10 years professional experience in China and South East Asia. She has worked with ClientEarth China Project as lawyer from 2017 to 2018 and focus on legal capacity building and legislation. Before ClientEarth, She has worked as the Mekong legal coordinator of Mekong Legal Program of EarthRights International in Thailand since 2015, focusing on Chinese overseas investment in Southeast Asia and South America. Before joining ERI, Jinmei worked with the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims (CLAPV) for six years, which is China’s most established group of environmental lawyers.

Julia Mayerhofer is currently the Interim Co-Executive Director.  She joined the team in July 2018 and in addition to leading the organization, she also oversees all operations and programs of PILnet in Asia. Previously she was with the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN) for seven years and led the Network as Executive Director/Secretary General from 2015-2018. Prior to her work with APRRN, Julia worked with a refugee community center in Hong Kong where she supported fundraising, project development, and also community outreach. Julia is an Austrian national and has a B.A. in Educational Sciences and a M.A. degree in Development Studies. In addition she has participated in various trainings related to human rights/refugee rights and remains a strong interest in this area.

Anastassiya Miller is a Senior Legal Officer, based out of the New York office. She is a Kazakh human rights lawyer with more than 10 years of experience in the human rights field, focusing on strategic litigation nationally and internationally. Anastassiya is a human rights trainer and specialist in the area of public control of closed facilities (pre-detention centers, prisons, mental hospitals, etc.).In 2015, she held an internship in Germany at the Institutfür Ostrecht, conducting research on various human rights issues in post-Soviet countries and drafting conclusions for the court. She graduated with an LL.M. degree in international human rights law from the University of Notre Dame in 2018.

Andrej Nosko is PILnet’s Interim Co-Executive Director. Prior to joining PILnet, Andrej was head of a division at an international foundation overseeing portfolios on policy research, innovation, democracy, governance, anti-corruption, and law enforcement. There he also spearheaded design, innovation and uptake of new technologies in research and communication. Andrej also worked for European Commission on law enforcement and internal security. Nosko received his PhD (Summa Cum Laude) in political science from Central European University in Budapest.

Currently working on establishing PILnet’s Environment and Climate Justice program and increasing awareness of civil society to opportunities that Environmental, Social, and (Corporate) Governance (ESG) offers.

Barbara is a legal expert and mediator with experience in company community conflicts, and strategic legal action to protect the climate, biodiversity and communities who depend on a healthy environment to thrive. Barbara worked with local and international NGOs,  public institutions (on climate policy), UN agencies and multilateral development banks, and has supported more than 2500 leading organizations and leaders in cracking wicked problems and devising collaborative solutions on themes of sustainable development, supply chains, biodiversity, climate change, energy transitions, human organizations, globally. Barbara holds a BA in Laws, and LLM and PhD in International Dispute Settlement and an MBA in Responsible Leadership. At FILE, the Foundation for the International Law for the Environment, she leads the work on strategic legal action on land use, with a focus on Brazil, Congo and Indonesia.

Giulia holds a Juris Doctor Degree, a Specialization Degree in Law and a Master of Art in Human Rights. After working for a civil and criminal firm and assisting the Public Prosecutor Office in Italy, she decided to focus her work on social justice and human rights issues. Giulia moved to Asia in 2012 and since then she has designed and implemented NGOs and Academic projects predominantly investigating Access to Justice for victims of trafficking in persons in the South East Asian territory with a special focus on child victims of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC).
Currently, Giulia works for PILnet as a consultant leading the Anti-Trafficking in Persons effort and supporting the development and implantation of the Online Regional Course on Public Interest Lawyering.

Nicola is a senior associate at Three Crowns Washington, DC office. Her experience includes international commercial and investment treaty arbitration, arbitration under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and proceedings before the International Court of Justice. She is a member of the International Bar Association’s under-40 arbitration sub-committee, the ICCA Task Force on Gender Diversity in International Arbitral Appointments and Proceedings, and the Campaign for Greener Arbitration’s Steering Committee. She is recognized for International Arbitration in The Legal 500 US for 2021.

Jeremy Perelman is Associate Professor (tenured) at the Sciences Po Law School. A member of the Paris Bar, he holds Masters degrees from Stanford Law School and the Fletcher School at Tufts University, as well as a Doctorate (S.J.D.) from Harvard Law School. His research focuses on the intersection between human rights-based approaches to sustainable development, global economic governance, and social change advocacy in the Global South. He is also the Faculty and Executive Director of the Sciences Po Law School Clinic. He sits on the Editorial Committee of the European Journal of Human Rights.

Thabang Pooe was admitted as an advocate in 2019. Thabang holds an LLB degree from the North West University and an LLM from the University of California Los Angeles. Prior to joining the Bar, Thabang clerked at the Constitutional Court. She has worked in a number of public interest litigation organizations as a senior legal researcher and policy development and advocacy officer for non-profit organizations.

Lauren Regan is the founder, director and senior staff attorney at the Civil Liberties Defense Center, and has specialized in civil rights, activist criminal defense, and environmental, climate, and animal rights law for the last 23 years. Regan’s unique work serves to highlight and strengthen the necessity for cross-movement organizing to save the planet and reduce the suffering of all living things. She currently provides legal and strategic organizing assistance and activist defense to climate and social justice movements around the country. She defends activists and organizations targeted by SLAPP suits and other forms of State repression, police misconduct litigation, ‘know your rights’ trainings, and anti-repression trainings, as well as legal observing and cop-watching coordination.

Leila Saad is the Executive Director of PILnet and is based in the organization’s New York office. She served as Deputy Director from 2019 through 2021. Prior to joining PILnet, she was a non-profit consultant for many years, working with organizations in the New York and Washington, D.C., areas. Previously, she worked at the JEHT Foundation, where she helped run the International Justice grantmaking portfolio to challenge U.S. exceptionalism to international law and legal mechanisms. She is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, where she studied international political economy. 

Jasmine Simperingham is currently the Global Project Coordinator (Forced Displacement) with the Hong Kong Office. She is working with the global legal community to use the power of law to protect and find solutions for refugees and others forcibly displaced. Jasmine joined the team in September 2020, coming to PILnet with over 15 years of international experience in the refugee protection, human rights and justice sectors. This includes more than 8 years experience with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as well as experience in the legal and justice sectors working for government authorities in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Jasmine holds a Master of Laws, a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws, specializing in international human rights and international criminal law.

Laura Lejla Szűcs is a Junior Legal Associate, consulting for the Budapest Office. Laura obtained her LLB in International and European Law in the Netherlands in 2020 and she is currently pursuing an LLM in International Human Rights law in Sweden. In 2020, she held an internship in Germany at a small non-governmental organization conducting research on various human rights issues in the Arab Gulf and engaging in advocacy on the ministerial level.

Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, a Togolese national is the appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association. Prior to his appointment, he led the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) work to support human rights defenders from States in transition and also coordinated the organization’s work in Africa as the advocacy director. He also worked as Secretary-General of the Togolese Coalition of Human Rights Defenders, as a campaigner for the Togolese Coalition for the International Criminal Court, and as Secretary-General of the Amnesty International section in Togo.

Krzysztof leads the European-wide ‘Rethink Fish’ team at CIWF International. His work is focused on improving EU policy in the area of aquaculture and fisheries.

He got his PhD degree in fish welfare at the Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences where he also worked as an Assistant Professor before moving to the NGO sector. Before joining CIWF Krzysztof worked as a consultant for Eurogroup for Animals, an EU lobby group working on improving animal welfare standards in the European Union. Krzysztof has appeared on TV programs including BBC Countryfile and has been quoted in The Guardian, The Daily Mail, Tygodnik Powszechny, Onet, and many more.

Yevgeniy Zhovtis is the director of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, a member of the IBA Human Rights Institute Board and a member of the OSCE / ODIHR Panel of Experts on Freedom of Assembly and Association. Zhovtis one of the drafters of the OSCE Guidelines on Freedom of Assembly. In 2020 Zhovtis and his organization
have been critical of the proposed revisions to the Kazakhstani law on assembly because it was generally not compliant with international human rights standards and there are severe and unjustified restraints on the time and place of assemblies, and burdens placed on the organizers of assemblies. In 2019-2021 the organization Zhovtis is leading organizes monitoring of assemblies in all regions of Kazakhstan and provides legal aid to peaceful protesters being prosecuted by the police.