Join us for Windsor Law’s first ever International Law Week: March 2 to 6, 2015!
During this week, Windsor Law will be hosting a series of virtual “coffee sessions,” which will showcase lawyers from across a multitude of borders and disciplines. This series seeks to illuminate the diversity of expertise captured within the area of “international law.”
In order to facilitate the international nature of these connections and conversations, these sessions will be held via Skype. Students will gather in Windsor Law’s Career Office conference room; mentors will be speaking from their respective home/work bases. Each session will last for approximately an hour.
Please see below for a list of participating mentors, their availabilities, their biographies, and their workplace descriptions.
SCHEDULES
- Sanja Popovic
Senior Legal Officer, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Mission in Kosovo, Kosovo
Mon, March 2, 12:30PM
- Zarizana Aziz
Director, Due Diligence Project, Malaysia
Mon, March 2, 2:30PM
- Sanyu Awori
Programme Officer, International Women’s Rights Action Watch - Asia Pacific, Malaysia
Tues, March 3, 9:30AM
- Alhagi Marong
Legal Affairs Officer, United Nations Mission in South Sudan, South Sudan
Tues, March 3, 12:00PM
- Waikwa Wanyoike
Executive Director, Katiba Institute, Kenya
Wed, March 4, 12:00PM
- Paul Clark
Barrister, Garden Court Chambers, UK
Wed, March 4, 2:30PM
- Diana Tseng
Associate Legal Officer, UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, The Hague
Thurs, March 5, 2:00PM
BIOGRAPHIES
Zarizana Abdul Aziz is a human rights lawyer. Zarizana was involved in legal reform initiatives on gender equality and anti-violence legislative reform initiatives in Timor Leste, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives and Myanmar and in constitutional dialogues in the Middle East post Arab Spring as well as training of lawyers, civil society advocates, religious scholars and government officials in several countries. She served as an expert in the Expert Group Meeting on Good Practices pursuant to the United Nations Secretary-General in-depth study on all forms of violence against women in addressing violence against women (UN General Assembly resolution 58/185) and as consultant for various other inter-governmental and international organizations. Zarizana served as Chair of Women Living Under Muslim Laws (until 2013). She also served as an elected Malaysian Bar Council member (the statutory self-regulatory body of all lawyers in Malaysia) and co-chairperson of the Human Rights Committee of the Bar Council and President of the Women’s Crisis Centre (now Women’s Centre for Change) in Malaysia. Most recently, she was shortlisted for the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women in Law and Practice. Zarizana was Human Rights Fellow and subsequently visiting scholar at Columbia University. Zarizana presently undertakes research and occasionally teaches at Northeastern University School of Law, Boston, USA.
Zarizana currently works for the Due Diligence Project. The principle aim of the Project is to add content to the international legal principle of ‘due diligence’ in the context of State responsibility to end violence against women. The Project has both global and regional components. The global component consists of literature review, which focus on studying the development and evolution of the due diligence principle in international law and how it is being commonly applied today. It also looks at the context of violence against women, its historical roots of exclusion and invisibility in the human rights discourse, as well as its later recognition as a violation of human rights. The regional component seeks to provide primary data and regional specificities that cannot be captured at the global level. This is accomplished through a questionnaire; meetings with regional experts; and continued publicly accessible research on State compliance in each region. The analysis of this regional process is captured in regional reports and informed the larger, global report. The Project worked in all six regions as follows: Africa; Asia-Pacific; Europe; Latin America and the Caribbean; Middle East and North Africa; and North America. In each region, save for North America, approximately 6–10 countries was selected. The selection of the countries was done in consultation with regional consultants and experts and reflect the diversity of the region including political, legal, cultural, historical and economic/financial diversity and capacity, exposure to different types of violence against women such as violence committed during armed conflict, female genital mutilation, and early marriage.
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Sanyu Awori currently works as a Programme Officer for the International Women’s Rights Action Watch (IWRAW) Asia Pacific, an international women’s rights organisation based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. At IWRAW Asia Pacific, Sanyu works with different stakeholders to enhance understanding of the standards embedded in the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in various contexts. She is presently working on a project that focuses on women’s economic rights in the ASEAN region. Prior to this, Sanyu worked for the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) based in Delhi, India where she focused on human rights advocacy in Commonwealth countries. CHRI is an independent, non-partisan, international non-governmental organisation that works to ensure the practical realisation of human rights in the countries of the Commonwealth. Here, she advocated specifically on issues to do with access to justice, civil society space and the protection of human rights defenders. She also worked with human rights defenders to lobby governments to comply with their obligations under human rights law. Sanyu has researched for the Human Rights Law Centre in Nottingham. She has also undertaken volunteer work with asylum seekers and refugees in the UK; and worked for the African Women Empowerment Forum in Nottingham: an organisation whose mission is to build the capacity of women refugees and asylum seekers. Sanyu has a Bachelor of Law (LLB with Honours) and a Masters in Human Rights Law (LLM with Distinction) from the University of Nottingham.
IWRAW Asia Pacific is an independent, non-profit international women’s rights organisation based in Malaysia, in Special Consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. IWRAW Asia Pacific contributes to the progressive interpretation and realisation of the human rights of women through the lens of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and other international human rights treaties. IWRAW Asia Pacific plays a critical role in filling the gap between the promise of women’s human rights as embodies in human rights treaties, and their actual realisation at the national level by mobilising women’s groups at all levels to draw accountability from governments on the domestic application of human rights standards. IWRAW Asia Pacific brings an analytical approach that addresses structural causes permitting violation of rights. We identify factors that are needed to create a culture of compliance with human rights norms and institutional frameworks and legal instruments that are needed for the administration of justice. IWRAW Asia Pacific works closely with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which is the Secretariat for the CEDAW Committee, to ensure that women’s groups can engage with the CEDAW review process throughout proceedings. Since 1997, IWRAW Asia Pacific has facilitated the participation of women from over 120 countries in the CEDAW review process through its “From Global to Local” programme.
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Paul Clark’s international practice includes pre-trial, trial and appeal proceedings before international tribunals – the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. He represented the post-revolutionary Libyan Government in both of the admissibility challenges before the International Criminal Court in respect of the ICC’s jurisdiction in post-revolutionary Libya (Prosecutor v. Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi and Prosecutor v Abdullah Al-Senussi). He has also worked as a defence lawyer in cases at the ICTY and SCSL - in particular, the RUF case and Prosecutor v Jovica Stanišić. His practice in the domestic courts, is comprised principally of the following:
- Judicial Review/administrative law across a number of areas, including the criminal justice system, criminal injury compensation claims, inquests, education, immigration detention, and human trafficking;
- Inquests: representing bereaved families in inquests concerning deaths in prison, in police custody, during police pursuits, and in the mental healthcare context. At present, Paul is representing an individual who was working as a private military contractor in Iraq when he shot and killed two colleagues, and who is now in prison in Iraq;
- Civil actions against the police (concerning unlawful detention, excessive force, misuse of powers, etc.);
- Prison Law;
- Immigration Detention;
- Equality and discrimination claims, especially in the education context; and
- Extradition.
Prior to practising as a barrister, Paul did academic work of various types, was a Research Assistant in the UK Law Commission, and was an Associate Legal Officer at the ICTY. Paul maintain my engagement with academic research through work with the Institute for Global Law & Policy at Harvard Law School.
Paul is currently based at Garden Court Chambers, which is a large, inter-disciplinary set of barristers’ chambers with a strong ethos of commitment to social justice and progressive lawyering. It is the largest set of chambers in London, and its work covers international practice of various types, administrative and public law, civil law, commercial law, community care, Court of Protection, crime, education, employment and discrimination, environmental law, extradition, family law (children law, financial remedies and international family law), fraud, housing, immigration (asylum, human rights, business and private), inquests, mental health, planning law, police law, prison law, property law, regulatory law, Romani Gypsy and Traveller rights and welfare benefits.
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Alhagi Marong D.C.L., LL.M. (McGill), LL.B & B.L. (Sierra Leone) is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL). Dr. Marong is currently Co-Director for Africa Programs at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C. He taught at the Department of Law, American University of Armenia and serving as Senior State Counsel at the Ministry of Justice in Gambia and Legal Adviser for the National Environment Agency of The Gambia. He has published on norm creation in international and the confluence of international business regimes and the confluence of social and environmental concerns in Africa. Dr Marong also worked with the Law Reform Commission of The Gambia, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Legal Affairs Division of the World Trade Organisation in Geneva, and studied at the International Development Law Organisation, in Rome. He has held the McGill Greenshields Fellowship, the McGill Major Fellowship, and a Commonwealth Scholarship.
Alhagi is currently a Legal Affairs Officer for the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). The UN Security Council established UNMISS in 2011. According to its original mandate, UNMISS was to support the Government in peace consolidation and thereby fostering longer-term state building and economic development; assist the Government in exercising its responsibilities for conflict prevention, mitigation, and resolution and protect civilians; and help the authorities in developing capacity to provide security, establishing the rule of law, and strengthening the security and justice sectors in the country. In March 2014, the Secretary-General further recommended that the Security Council should temporarily shift UMISS’s focus from mainly peacebuilding activities to: protecting civilians; facilitating humanitarian assistance; monitoring and reporting on human rights; preventing further inter-communal violence; and supporting the IGAD process as and when requested, and within available capabilities. The protection priority would be for displaced people sheltering in United Nations compounds and other locations, and would expand once conditions were created for their safe return home, he said, adding that the new posture of UNMISS would be in place until the two sides to the conflict finalized a political agreement.
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Sanja Popovic LL.M (NYU), J.D, LL.B (Windsor) is currently working as a Senior Legal Officer at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Mission in Kosovo. She provides guidance and advice on how to improve the legislative drafting process, rule of law and human rights standards. Previously, she worked as a Legal Officer and as a Human Dimension Officer for the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. In the Netherlands, she worked as a Legal Expert for the High Commissioner on National Minorities. Prior to moving abroad, she summered, articled and worked as an associate at Gowling Lefleur Henderson LLP in Toronto, Canada.
The core mandate of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission in Kosovo is to take the lead role in all matters relating to institution- and democracy-building, as well as human rights, in Kosovo. It concentrates its work, among others, in the areas of protection and promotion of human and community rights; good governance, gender equality and civic participation; the training of judicial personnel, the Kosovo Police and public administrators; and electoral support.
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Diana Tseng LL.M. (NYU), J.D. (Windsor), Bachelor of Journalism (Ryerson) is currently working as an Associate Legal Officer advising Judge Liu Daqun at the Appeals Chamber of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). At the ICTR and ICTY Appeals Chamber, she participates in the drafting and reviewing process of judgements and decisions on matters of substantive and procedural international criminal law. Previously, she was the Robert L. Bernstein Fellow in International Human Rights at Human Rights in China, a non-governmental organization based in New York, where she researched issues of freedom of expression, counter-terrorism, rule of law, criminal procedure, and civil and political rights in relation toChina. Diana has also served as a law clerk to Madam Justice Judith Snider at the Federal Court of Canada and has worked extensively on immigration and refugee judicial review cases. Finally, during her time at Windsor Law, Diana was a Social Justice Fellow and interned inWindhoek, Namibia, where she lobbied the Namibian government on access to information legislation and researched abuses against journalists in Southern African countries.
The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was established by the UN Security Council to “prosecute persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Rwanda and neighbouring States, between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 1994”. The Tribunal is located in Arusha, Tanzania, and has offices in Kigali, Rwanda. Its Appeals Chamber is located in The Hague, Netherlands. The ICTR is the first ever international tribunal to deliver verdicts in relation to genocide, and the first to interpret the definition of genocide set forth in the 1948 Geneva Conventions. It also is the first international tribunal to define rape in international criminal law and to recognise rape as a means of perpetrating genocide.
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Waikwa Wanyoike is the Executive Director of Katiba Institute, a research and advocacy organization which seeks to promote the understanding and implementation of Kenya’s new Constitution with a view to entrenching a culture of constitutionalism in Kenya. Waikwa’s interest in the Constitution started in mid-1990’s when he became a Council Member of the Citizens Coalition for Constitutional Change (4C’s), a lobby group that was campaigning for constitutional change. He also served as a Council Member in the National Constitution Executive Committee (NCEC). He studied at Kenyatta University in Kenya, and later at York and Queen’s Universities in Canada. He was called to the bar of the Law Society of Upper Canada in 2003 and soon after started a law practice in Toronto specializing in administrative, criminal, refugee and constitutional law. In Canada, he served on the board of numerous community organizations assisting the vulnerable sectors of society and also taught Advocacy at the Osgoode Hall Law School of York University. In 2010, Waikwa was named one of five inaugural Precedent Setters in legal practice in the Province of Ontario, Canada by The Precedent legal magazine for his excellence and leadership in legal practice and contribution to the community. Waikwa returned to Kenya in 2011 to help found Katiba Institute and participate in the larger implementation process of the new Constitution. He also advises non-governmental and governmental agencies on litigation, human rights and constitutional matters. He is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya and appears regularly in that Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Kenya on public interest matters.
The Katiba Institute, located in Nairobi, was established in 2011 to promote knowledge and studies of constitutionalism and to facilitate the implementation of Kenya’s new constitution. Its activities include publications on the constitution, workshops on constitutional issues, public interest litigation, development of the legal and judicial system, providing technical support on devolution, land reform, review of legislative bills to implement the Constitution, and promoting the participation of Kenyans in public affairs.
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GUIDELINES FOR PARTICIPATING STUDENTS:
- Students must register on Symplicity for each session.
- Registration will be capped at 5 students max per session.
- If registration for your desired session is full, please add your name to the waitlist on Symplicity.
- If, after registering, you realise you will not be able to attend, please un-register, so that other students may attend.
- Registration for each session will close 48 hours before the given session.
This event is brought to you by Windsor Law Career Services and generously supported by the Law Foundation of Ontario.