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tinyiko ngobeni 1

Senior lecturer

LLD LLM (UNISA) LLM (UP) LLB (Cum laude)(Stadio) BProc (Wits) MBA (Regenesys) PhD Business Admin) Candidate (NWU)

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Biography

Dr Ngobeni manages the International Development Law Unit (IDLU), which hosts the LLM Trade and Investment Law in Africa (TILA). Dr Ngobeni is on the editorial board of the South African Yearbook of International Law (SAYIL) and was on board of Tydskrif vir Hedendaagse Romeins-Hollandse Reg /Journal of Contemporary Roman-Dutch Law (THRHR). Previously, he was a junior editor at the Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal.

 

Zainab 1

Post-Doctoral Fellow and Administrator; Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI)

B.Sc (Hons) Political Science, University of Lagos; B.SocSci (Hons) Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Cape Town; MA Political Science, University of Pretoria; Ph.D. Political Science, University of Pretoria

Biography

Dr. Zainab Monisola Olaitan is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Litigation and Implementation unit at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. She is also the administrator of the Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI) Secretariat hosted at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. Zainab recently completed her PhD degree in Political Science looking at the impact of gender quotas on the substantive representation of women in African politics. Her doctoral thesis interrogated the assumption that women’s increased participation in politics improves the life of women substantively. She obtained her first degree in Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Political Science with First class from the University of Lagos. Zainab completed her second degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics Honors at the University of Cape Town as a 2018 Mandela Rhodes Scholar. In 2019, she was selected for the Mastercard foundation scholarship to study for a Masters in Political Science at the University of Pretoria. Her master’s dissertation was on women’s participation in peacebuilding in West Africa, using Sierra Leone as a case study. In 2022, she was awarded the Margaret McNamara Education Grant for her impactful research work on women and children. Zainab is an avid researcher with published articles in journals, book projects, policy briefs across different themes on political thought, gender and representation, conflict and peace studies, African politics and African Indigenous Knowledge System (AIKS).

Publications

Olaitan, Z.M. 2023. Gender Participation and Agricultural Development Projects in Nigeria. African Journal of Gender, Society and Development, 12 (3): 31-51.  

 Olaitan, Z.M. 2023. Feminist Rethinking of the Representation of African Women in Peacebuilding: A Theoretical Analysis. African Journal of Gender, Society and Development, 12 (1): 185-207. https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.31920/2634-3622/2023/v12n1a9

 Olaitan, Z.M. 2022. A Modern History of Statelessness and the Socio-Political Question. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 36(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2159703

Olaitan, Z.M. 2022. Enlightenment Ideas and Colonialism. In Africa’s Radicalisms and Conservatisms edited by E. Etieyibo, Vol (2) Brill Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004523586_019

Isike, E., Olaitan, Z.M., and Isike C.A. 2022. Cyberspace Xenophobia in South Africa. In Conflict and Concord edited by C. Isike and E. Isike, Palgrave Macmillan, 85-108. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1033-3_5

Olaitan, Z.M. 2022. Review of Secular Power Europe and Islam by Sarah Wolff. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 34 (6). https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2022.2035090

Olaitan, Z.M., & Isike, C.A. 2019. The Role of the African Union in Fostering Women’s Representation in Formal Peacebuilding; A case study of Sierra Leone. Journal of African Union Studies, 8(2). https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC-18309d845d

Yanga Malotana

Project Officer: Democracy and Civic Engagement Unit

Tel: +27 (0) 12 420 4199
 u18020322@tuks.co.za

henok kremte 1

Project Officer: Expression, Information and Digital Rights Unit, HRDA Tutor and PhD Candidate

Tel: +27 (0) 713362225
henok.kremte@up.ac.za 
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chr strategic plan

 

Table of content

Background and context

Who we are

Vision and mission

Centre values

Review of Strategic Plan 2017–2020

SWOT analysis

Key cross-cutting imperatives for the Centre’s work

The Centre’s thematic priorities

Critically reconsider operational priorities

Consolidate, innovate and improve methods of work

Consolidate and expand partnerships

Resources

Implementation and monitoring

Risk assessment

Implementation plan

Download the Strategic Plan

Shyreen Odala Chirwa

Shyreen Odala Chirwa

LLB(Malawi) LLM(UP)

Shyreen Yona Chirwa is a Doctoral Candidate at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, where she is also serving as a Project Officer within the Children's Rights Unit. She holds a Master of Laws in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa from the University of Pretoria (2022), a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) degree from the University of Malawi (2014), and a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Livingstonia, Malawi (2009). Her academic and professional interests span several critical areas, including children's rights, criminal law and justice, and climate justice. Through her research and advocacy, she is committed to promoting stronger legal protections for children, enhancing equitable access to justice, and addressing the intersections between human rights, law, and environmental sustainability.

Tel +27 (0)65 560 3814
shyreen.chirwa@up.ac.za

ivy gikonyo 1

Expression, Information and Digital Rights
Project Officer

Tel: +27 (0) 12 420 3180
 ivy.gikonyo@up.ac.za

jared gekombe 1

LLB (Moi University), LLM HRDA (Pretoria) LLD Cand. (Pretoria)

HRDA Tutor and Doctoral Candidate
Project Officer: Expression, Information and Digital Rights 
HRDA Tutor and Doctoral Candidate

Tel: +27 (0) 12 420 3180
 jared.gekombe@up.ac.za

 
 

mispa roux 

Project Coordinator

Tel: +27 (0) 12 420 3810
   mispa.roux@up.ac.za

Mispa Roux is a coordinator at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for Human Rights of a project to strengthen the protection of sexual and reproductive health rights in Africa, and she is also a senior research officer in the NRF SARChI Chair for International Constitutional Law at UP. She completed her LLB degree in 2006, an LLM degree in International Law in 2007, and her LLD degree in International Law in 2012, all from the University of Johannesburg. Her LLD thesis is entitled “A Comparative Analysis of the Causes for Breaching the Erga Omnes Obligation to Prevent and Prosecute Gross Human Rights Violations”, and it was completed under the supervision of Professor Hennie Strydom.

Prior to joining UP, she was a senior lecturer in the Department of Public Law at the Law Faculty of the University of Johannesburg between 2008 and 2022. She taught public international law, international criminal and humanitarian law, as well as human rights law. Mispa was further the Deputy Director of the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (SAIFAC), a centre of the University of Johannesburg, between 2016 and 2022, and was also the founder and head of its Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Unit.

Mispa’s research focuses on international criminal law (in particular genocide, crimes against humanity, and sexual and gender-based violence), international human rights law, the law of state responsibility, and South African human rights law. She has published on these focus areas in a number of leading discipline specific accredited journals and peer-reviewed books, and has presented several academic papers at international conferences and national conferences. She also sits on the editorial board of the Constitutional Court Review (CCR), a law journal that devotes its attention to the work of the South African Constitutional Court.

Op-Ed's

Articles in peer-reviewed or refereed journals

  • Mispa Roux “Early warning of gross human rights violations: an international law perspective” (4) Tydskrif vir die Suid-Afrikaanse Reg (Journal of South African Law) 2011 650 – 663.
  • Mispa Roux “The erga omnes obligation to prevent and prosecute gross human rights violations with special emphasis upon genocide and persecution as a crime against humanity” African Yearbook on International Humanitarian Law 2012 98 – 133.
  • Mispa Roux “Reaction to early warning of gross human rights violations: preventative steps by the international community”, (3) Tydskrif vir die Suid-Afrikaanse Reg (Journal of South African Law) (2013) 453 – 477.
  • Mispa Roux “Sexual violence during armed conflict and reparation: paying due regard to a unique trauma” African Yearbook on International Humanitarian Law (2014) 87 – 110.
  • Mispa Roux “A new era for international criminal law: rethinking the definitions of crimes against humanity and genocide through the scope of its evolution as an outgrowth of war crimes” (2017) Southern African Yearbook of International Law 80 – 118.
  • Mispa Roux “Obstacles to the prevention of gross human rights violations” (1) Tydskrif vir die Suid-Afrikaanse Reg (Journal of South African Law) 2018 106.
  • Mispa Roux “Contributing to the achievement of justice for victims of sexual and gender-based violence by implementing the legacy and experience of international criminal courts and tribunals” Volume 31 Stellenbosch Law Review (2020) 455 – 480.
  • Mispa Roux “Addressing a selection of challenges faced at international courts and tribunals with jurisdiction over international crimes” African Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law (2020) 44 – 77.
  • Mispa Roux “Loyiso Coko v S (CA&R 219/2020) [2021] ZAECGHC 91 (8 October 2021): oblique subscription to rape myths as an indication of the urgent need to reform the mens rea test in acquaintance rape cases in South Africa” South African Journal of Criminal Justice 2022 (3) 356 – 372.

Chapters in books

  • Mispa Roux “Comment: democratic flexibility and constitutional stability” in Charl Hugo and Thomas MJ Möllers (editors) Legality and Limitation of Powers: Values, Principles and Regulations in Civil Law, Criminal Law, and Public Law Volume 88 (Nomos Verlagsgeseelschaft and Juta & Co) (2019) 89 – 102.
  • Mispa Roux and Kriyanka Reddi “Sexual and gender-based violence in the context of the Syrian armed conflict and the question of individual criminal responsibility for the perpetrators” in Hennie Strydom and Joanna Botha (editors) Select Essays on Governance and Accountability Issues in Public Law (African Sun Media, SUN PReSS) (2020) (double blind peer reviewed; editors applied for accreditation).
  • Mispa Roux “The significance of the erga omnes obligation to prosecute genocide for legal certainty in international criminal law” in Hugo and Moellers (editors) Legal Certainty and Fundamental Rights: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach to Constitutional Principles in German and South African Law Volume 89 (Nomos Verlagsgeseelschaft and Juta & Co) (2020) (double blind peer reviewed; editors applied for accreditation).
  • Mispa Roux and Sabreen Hassen “Legal certainty and international crimes: a public international law perspective” in Hugo and Moellers (editors) Legal Certainty and Fundamental Rights: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach to Constitutional Principles in German and South African Law Volume 89 (Nomos Verlagsgeseelschaft and Juta & Co) (2020) (double blind peer reviewed; editors applied for accreditation).
  • Mispa Roux “Withdrawal from the International Criminal Court: South Africa’s legacy of overlooking the erga omnes obligation to prosecute international crimes by prioritising peace” in David Bilchitz and Raisa Cachalia (Editors), Magadalena Correa Henao and Nathalia Bautista Pizarro (Adjunct Editors) Transitional and Distributive Justice in Transformative Constitutionalism: Comparing Colombia and South Africa (Oxford University Press (forthcoming in 2023) (double blind peer reviewed; editors applied for accreditation).
Michelle Maziwisa 1 

Programme Manager: LLM HRDA 

Tel: +27 (0) 12 420 6703
michelle.maziwisa@up.ac.za


Publications

  • Michelle Rufaro Maziwisa & Ebenezer Durojaye 'The state of Zimbabwe’s compliance with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control' in E Durojaye and L Murungi International Human Rights Law and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Lessons from Africa and Beyond (Routledge, 2022).
  • Maziwisa MR 'External Economic Arrangements and South African Cities as Agents of Local Development: Illustrations from the City of Cape Town' (2021) 17(1) Journal of Global Business and Technology 54-68.

  • Maziwisa MR 'Barriers to access to contraceptives for adolescent girls in rural Zimbabwe as a human rights challenge' in E Durojaye, G Mirugi-Mukundi and C Ngwena Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Africa: Constraints and Opportunities (Routledge, 2021) pp. 67-83.

 

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