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Lawyer and University Lecturer, Eduardo Mondlane University
PhD candidate in Human Rights at the University of Ghent (Belgium) in the area of Women's Human Rights and Labour Relations (African perspective). She has a master’s in international Trade Law from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa (2003).
She is Director of the Human Rights Programme/master’s degree in human Rights (Faculty of Law, Eduardo Mondlane University). She is a researcher with an interest in human rights in Africa, in particular women's rights, human rights and business, the right to health, access to information and the rights of people with disabilities.
She is currently a member of the National Bioethics Committee for Health (CNBSMozambique). She was Vice-President of the National Council of the Mozambican Bar Association (2020-2023).
She is a member of the African Universities Network of the Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa Programme (HRDA) in partnership with the University of Pretoria (South Africa) and a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA) since 2021. She is a member of ALDIS - Lusophone Association of Health Law (Coimbra). Since 2016, she has collaborated with the Ius Gentium Conimbrigae (IGC) - Human Rights Centre, University of Coimbra in the Postgraduate Programme in Human Rights and since 2021 with POSCOHR - Observatory of Human Rights (Portuguese Speaking Countries Observatory of Human Rights) in the Postgraduate Programme in Human Rights, Health and Justice.
She is the coordinator (Organizer) of the Human Rights Journal published by the Human Rights Centre at UEM. She is also a member of the Association of International Energy Negotiators (AIEN) formerly known as AIPN and was recently appointed as a member of the Advisory Board of the Human Rights Centre of the Faculty of Law (University of Pretoria), South Africa.
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Senior lecturer
LLD LLM (UNISA) LLM (UP) LLB (Cum laude)(Stadio) BProc (Wits) MBA (Regenesys) PhD Business Admin) Candidate (NWU)
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.
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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
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Tel: +27 (0) 12 420 4199
u18020322@tuks.co.za
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Project Officer: Expression, Information and Digital Rights Unit, HRDA Tutor and PhD Candidate
Tel: +27 (0) 713362225
henok.kremte@up.ac.za
ORCID
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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
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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
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Expression, Information and Digital Rights
Project Officer
Tel: +27 (0) 12 420 3180
ivy.gikonyo@up.ac.za
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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
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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).
