|
Current positions:
|
 |
June 2004 - present
Amnesty International, International Secretariat, (London, UK)
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Coordinator
• Central adviser on economic, social and cultural rights (ESC rights) within the Amnesty International (AI) movement;
• Overseeing the development of strategy and policies related to ESC rights for a global human rights activist organisation with around two million members;
• Ensuring the mainstreaming of an ESC rights perspective across AI’s human rights agenda;
• Advising AI researchers on designing actions, planning and undertaking missions, and reporting on violations of ESC rights;
• Designing an AI “global campaign” related to ESC rights;
• Planning and undertaking research and action projects related to ESC rights;
• Government lobbying to intergovernmental working group for an individual complaints mechanism on ESC rights within the UN System;
• Advising on campaigning to advance ESC rights (including the use of traditional techniques such as letter writing and “Urgent Actions”, as well as promoting the application of new techniques);
• Training, capacity building and outreach within the AI movement and externally.
|
 |
|
Previous positions:
|
|
March 2004 - July 2004
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Division of Basic Education, (Paris, France and mobile)
Consultant Project Manager
• Guiding the design of a major project to provide support to countries re-instituting free primary education;
• Preparation of the project background paper and human rights framework.
January 2003 - March 2004
UNESCO International Bureau of Education, (Geneva, Switzerland)
Associate Expert (Human Rights)
• Developing a human rights framework for the activities of a UNESCO expert institute;
• Developing links between the work of IBE and the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, and the Education for All Global Monitoring Report team;
• Responsible for IBE input into the Education for All Monitoring Report 2003, and developing activities on Human Rights Education and taking a human rights approach to analysing educational content.
August 2001 - May 2004
Right to Education Project for the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, (mobile)
Research Coordinator
• Project management including developing work plans, commissioning, supervising and editing research papers, content for a public access resource on human rights and education;
• Undertaking in-depth research on human rights in education in various countries;
• Advising donor agencies, national governments and civil society on applying a human rights based approach to education development;
• Representing the Project and the Special Rapporteur at international conferences, in government and international organisation approaches, joint activities with NGOs etc;
• Supervising the work of consultants, volunteers and interns;
• Responding to queries regarding legal and human rights aspects of education;
• Liaising with human rights, child rights, education and development networks, developing a wide network of individuals and organisations working with the human rights and education around the world;
• Updating and maintaining a large, high traffic Internet site.
January 2001 - March 2004
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Professor Katarina Tomaševski
January 2001 - December 2002 - Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, (Lund, Sweden)
January 2003 - March 2004 - UNESCO International Bureau of Education (Geneva, Switzerland)
Researcher
• Researching all dimensions of the right to education, including clarification of the international and domestic legal framework, and investigations into alleged denials or violations;
• Participation in the work of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and its Sub Commission;
• Preparation of background research and meetings with the World Bank, especially concerning the development of its education policy.
|
|
Short term assignments
and keynote papers:
|
|
July - September 2003
Council of Europe
• Review of work of the Advisory Committee on the framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities on educational rights;
• Presentation of a keynote review to the intergovernmental conference “Filling the Frame: the fifth anniversary of the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities”.
Various
UNESCO (Paris, France and mobile)
Human Rights Consultant, Education for All Global Monitoring Report
• providing human rights input, framework documents and advice to a major inter-agency monitoring report including preparing two background papers: “Human Rights, Promoting Gender Equality in and through Education”, and “A Human Rights approach to Quality Education” (www.efareport.unesco.org)
May 2003
International Conference on Culture and Development (Stockholm plus 5) (Stockholm, Sweden)
• Keynote presentation on Education for All and Cultural Human Rights.
September 2002
Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, (NORAD), (Lusaka, Zambia)
• Presentation of key note paper "the human rights approach to education in Zambia" and resource person to a seminar with the Zambian Ministry of Education, donor and United Nations agencies (including country coordinators for World Bank and UNICEF), and civil society.
August 2001
Second International Conference on Children's Rights Education, (Victoria, Canada)
• Presentation of paper: "Education: the rights based perspective" and acted as human rights and education resource person.
September – December 2000
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), (London, UK)
Project Assistant
• Drafting confidential professional reports and liaising with clinical staff;
• Creating a welcoming environment for young people displaying hyper-sexualised and abusive behaviour.
January – July 1999
Instituto Latinoamericano de Servicios Legales Alternativos (ILSA), (Bogota, Colombia)
Research Assistant/Publications Reviser
• Coordinating a network of 1000 academics and practitioners on justice reform in Latin America for a regional human rights and social justice non-governmental organisation;
• Investigating justice reform in the region;
• Compiling a bulletin "Derecho y Justicia";
• Revising English language publications..
|
|
|
Teaching and training:
|
|
March 2005-present
University of Essex, (Colchester, UK)
• Teaching LLM students classes on the right to education.
2001 - present
Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, (Lund, Sweden)
• Teaching and training on the right to education in advanced courses on Human Rights and Gender Equality for participants from Middle East and North Africa (2004, 2005), Central and Eastern Europe (2004) and in previous international courses (2001- twice, 2002 - three times).
May 2003
Peaceworkers UK for the European Union
• Training prospective European Union human rights field officers on land rights and the right to education.
September 2002
Viadrina Europa Universität Summer School on Human Rights in the European System, (Frankfurt Oder, Germany)
• Training graduate students from Central and Eastern Europe on "the right to education in the European system and beyond".
2001-2002
Centre for International Migration and Ethnic Relations at Malmö University, (Malmö, Sweden)
• Teaching postgraduate classes on the right to education, the World Bank and Human Rights, Minority Rights in Education (total of nineteen hours).
November 2001
Save the Children Sweden (Stockholm, Sweden)
• Training of education programme officers from ten countries on the “human rights based approach to education”; assisted SCS in formulating a working definition of inclusive education.
|
|
|
Publications:
|
|
Reports and longer publications authored
• Human Rights for Human Dignity: a primer on economic, social and cultural rights, Amnesty International, AI Index POL 34/009/2005, 2005, 80pp.
• Minority Rights in Education: lessons for the European Union from Estonia, Latvia, Romania, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Raoul Wallenberg Institute/ Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, 2002, pp 95.
Reports and longer publications edited
• PROSPECTS, UNESCO quarterly review of comparative education, issue 129, Gender Equality and Education: perspectives, case studies and trends, vol XXXIV, No.1, March 2004
• At What Age…are school children married, employed and taken to court (Research supervision and editor, author Angela Melchiorre), Raoul Wallenberg Institute/ Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency November 2002, and 2nd ed 2004, pp 124.
• Beyond Law (Mas alla del derecho) journal of the Latin American Institute of Alternative Legal Services, Bogota, Colombia, 1999. (Language editor)
Articles and chapters authored
• “Education Rights”, pp 55- 68 in Minority Rights Group International, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: a guide for minorities and indigenous peoples, Margot E. Salomon (ed), London, 2005
• “The Right to Education”, pp 105-108, in, The Essentials of Human Rights, Rhoda K. M. Smith and Christien van den Anker (eds), Hodder Arnold, London, 2005 “
• Report: a critical evaluation of the first results of the monitoring of the Framework Convention on the issue of minority rights in, to and through education (1998-2003)”, pp 161-226 and “Conclusions – workshop on education”, pp 264-267 in Council of Europe, Filling the Frame: five years of monitoring the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Strasbourg, 2004
• “Human Rights: Promoting Gender Equality in and through Education”, in PROSPECTS, UNESCO quarterly review of comparative education, issue 129, Gender Equality and Education: perspectives, case studies and trends, vol XXXIV, No.1, March 2004
• “Educational Rights of Persons Belonging to National Minorities”, pp 381-386, International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, vol. 10 No. 4, 2003
• “Education rights in the Central European Initiative”, pp 65-69 in, Minorities and the Central European Initiative: on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the CEI Instrument for the Protection of Minority Rights, CEI, Milan, 2004
Adviser
Various Amnesty International reports related to ESC rights, including:
• Bosnia and Herzegovina: Behind Closed Gates: ethnic discrimination in employment, AI Index EUR
• Brazil: foreigners in our own country – Indigenous peoples in Brazil, AI Index AMR 19/016/2005
• Croatia: Briefing to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, AI Index EUR 64/003/2004
• Greece: Out of the Spotlight – the rights of foreigners and minorities still a grey area, AI Index EUR 25/016/2005
• India: Clouds of Injustice – Bhopal disaster 20 years on, AI Index ASA 20/15/2004
• Myanmar: Leaving Home – forced labour and requisitioning leading to migration, AI Index ASA 16/023/2005
• Nigeria: Making the Destitute Homeless – forced evictions in Makoko, Lagos State, AI Index AFR 44/001/2006
• Thailand: The Plight of Burmese Migrant Workers, AI Index: ASA 39/001/2005
• Zimbabwe: Power and Hunger – violations of the right to food, AI Index AFR 46/026/2004
|
|
|
Education:
|
|
September 1999 - December 2000
Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Lund University, (Sweden)
LLM, Master in Human Rights, Humanitarian and Refugee Law (Distinction)
• Courses on public international law, international human rights law, the African and American human rights systems, economic, social and cultural rights, international humanitarian law, UN law;
• Master thesis on the World Bank and IMF in international law.
October 1994 - June 1998
University of Edinburgh
LLB (Upper second class Honours)
• Honours courses on theories of law and society, criminology, medical jurisprudence, justice, ethics and law, human rights.
Languages:
English: Mother tongue
Spanish: Fluent
French: Professional conversational level
|
|
|
|
 |
REFERENCES AVAILABLE ON REQUEST
|
|
|