Faculty
Teaching staff
The faculty is listed below although not all tutors will teach every year.
Dapo Akande LLB (Ife), LLM (LSE), MA (Oxon) is University Lecturer in Public International Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford and Yamani Fellow at St. Peter’s College. He is also Co-Director, Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC). He was recently Visiting Associate Professor and Robina Foundation International Fellow at Yale Law School. Dapo is editor of EJIL:Talk!, blog of the European Journal of International Law. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Journal of International Law, the Editorial Board of the African Journal of International and Comparative Law, the Advisory Council of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, and the Executive Council of the British Branch of the International Law Association. He has acted as Consultant for the African Union on terrorism and the International Criminal Court. In addition, he advises and assists counsel in cases before a range of national and international tribunals.
Carlos Ayala holds an Abogado degree (JD equivalent) from Universidad Católica “Andrés Bello” in Caracas, Venezuela, with a cum laudem honor diploma; and a MA, Georgetown University, USA). He has taught Constitutional Law and International Human Rights Law as a Professor in the Universidad Católica “Andrés Bello” (1983- ), Universidad Central de Venezuela (1988- ), Georgetown University (1998), American University Washington College of Law (1999; 2005-), Universidad Iberoamericana, México (2004- ). He is also author of several publications on the field of Constitutional Law and Human Rights Law. Carlos Ayala has also been a Member and President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Right, Rapporteur for the Rights of Indigenous People in the Americas (1996-1999); and President of the Andean Commission of Jurists (2003-2010). He has served as a Member of the International Commission for the process of selection and appointment of the Supreme Court of Justice of Ecuador on behalf of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (2005) and was a UN Consultant in the process of appointment of the Supreme Court of Justice of Guatemala (2009). Carlos Ayala has long standing experience as a lawyer and litigant in Human Rights cases defending victims before national and international bodies (UN and I-A).
Fareda Banda BL Hons, LLB (Zimbabwe), DPhil (Oxon). Fareda Banda is a Reader in the Laws of Africa at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies. Her areas of interest/expertise include the human rights of women, alternative dispute resolution and family law. Following her doctorate she worked as a Research Assistant at the Law Commission of England and Wales before returning to Oxford on a two year Leverhulme Special Research Fellowship. She edits the Journal of African Law and is an Associate Editor (Africa) of the International Survey of Family Law. Her publications include a book entitled Women, Law and Human Rights: An African Perspective.
Margaret Bedggood LLB (University of Otago); MA (University of New Zealand and University College London); Hon. D (University of Waikato); Honorary Professor of Law, University of Waikato, New Zealand. Professor Bedggood, a former Dean of the Law Faculty at the University was an elected member of the International Executive Committee, Amnesty International from 1999 to 2005. Her research interests include all aspects of human rights law, both domestic and international, especially economic, social and cultural rights, and more recently the intersection of human rights, religion and theology. Prior to her appointment at the Waikato Law School, Professor Bedggood was the Chief Commissioner and Chair of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission from 1989 to 1994. She has been a member of the Refugee Council of New Zealand, the Council of the Peace Foundation and Chair of the Human Rights Foundation of Aoteoroa/ New Zealand. She has also served on various Anglican commissions and is a member of the (Anglican) Third Order of the Society of St. Francis.
Carolyn Patty Blum BA (University of Arizona); JD (Northeastern); Honorary D. Laws (Skidmore College, Bloomfield College); Visiting Fellow, Kellogg College, Oxford. Blum is a human rights consultant, working for a variety of NGOs and foundations. She also serves as the Senior Legal Adviser to the Center for Justice and Accountability on the Spanish case concerning the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador. Professor Blum started with the Oxford International Human Rights Programme as a faculty member for the first summer school. Professor Blum is a Clinical Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley where she founded and directed the International Human Rights Law Clinic. Her areas of expertise and publication are refugee law, transitional justice and accountability, human rights and national security, and human rights and film; in addition, she has litigated dozens of asylum and human rights cases.
Robert Cryer LLB (Cardiff); LLM, PhD (Nottingham). Prof Cryer was a lecturer in the University of Manchester from 1999-2001 before returning to the School of Law, University of Nottingham in September 2001. He moved to Birmingham in April 2007. His major teaching and research interests are in international law and criminal law. In addition to a number of articles and book chapters he is the author of Prosecuting International Crimes: Selectivity and the International Criminal Law Regime (Cambridge: CUP, 2005) and co-author (with Håkan Friman, Darryl Robinson and Elizabeth Wilmshurst) of An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure (Cambridge: CUP, 2007).He has recently finished writing a book on The Tokyo International Military Tribunal for Oxford University Press. He is book review editor of the Journal of Conflict and Security Law.
Nazila Ghanea BA (Keele), MA (Leeds), PhD (Keele). University Lecturer in International Human Rights Law, University of Oxford and Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford. Her areas of expertise include non-discrimination, freedom of religion or belief, minority rights, questions surrounding discrimination and freedom of expression and human rights in the Middle East. She has published in these areas, including journal articles with the International and Comparative Law Quarterly and the Human Rights Quarterly and the publication of nine books. She has carried out funded research with the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, the UK Economic and Social Research Council and has been an International Policy Fellow with the Open Society Institute. Her research has taken her for first hand research to a number of countries including Malaysia and the Middle East and she has lectured and carried out human rights training in many countries including China, Kyrgyzstan and Oman. She is the author of three UN papers and has presented at a number of UN seminars. She has also advised governments on a range of human rights matters particularly in relation to the protection of human rights. She is the Founding Editor of Religion and Human Rights, An International Journal.
Christof Heyns MA, LLB (Pretoria); LLM (Yale); PhD (Witwatersrand). Dean of the Faculty of Law and former Director of the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. Dean Heyns has published widely in the field of international human rights law, including The Impact of the United Nations Human Rights Treaties on the Domestic Level and Especially on Human Rights Law in Africa (including Human Rights Law in Africa and Socio-Economic Rights in South Africa). He is editor-in-chief of the African Human Rights Law Reports and co-editor of the African Human Rights Law Journal. He has served as consultant to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Organization of African Unity/African Union and the South African Human Rights Commission.
Dino Kritsiotis is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Nottingham, where he has taught since October 1994. Professor Kritsiotis completed his law studies at the University of Wales College of Cardiff, and at the University of Cambridge, where he obtained his LL.M. in international law with distinction in June 1992. He also holds a Diploma of International Humanitarian Law, also awarded with distinction, by the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1993. His teaching and research interests concern international law and the use of force, international humanitarian law, general international law, as we as the history and theory of international law. He is widely published in these fields. Professor Kritsiotis is a regular member of the visiting faculty at the University of Michigan Law School, where he has held the L. Bates Lea Visiting Professorship in Law (2005-2008), and he has taught at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and at the University of Cape Town. He sits on the editorial boards for the Journal of Conflict and Security Law (Oxford University Press), the Human Rights Law Review (Oxford University Press), Human Rights & Human Welfare (www.hrhw.org) and the African Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law (Juta Publishing).
Jeremy McBride LLB (Cantab). Barrister, Monckton Chambers, London (2006-) and Visiting Professor, Central European University (1997-). He is also a Member (2008-) and Vice-Chair (2009-) of the Scientific Committee of the European Union's Fundamental Rights Agency and coordinator of the Expert Council on NGO Law of the Council of Europe's Conference on INGOs (2008-). He is an expert on human rights law for the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Office of the High Commission for Human Rights and UNDP and is Editor, Butterworths Human Rights Cases and Consultant Editor, Commonwealth Human Rights Law Digest. He is the co-founder and Chair of INTERIGHTS (the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights) and was formerly Reader in International Human Rights Law, University of Birmingham (1978-2006).
Juan E. Méndez holds an Abogado degree (JD equivalent) from the Stella Maris Catholic University, Mar del Plata, Argentina, and a certificate from the Washington College of Law, The American University, Washington, DC, USA (1980). He is admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia, USA and of Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata, Argentina. He teaches at the Washington College of Law and is currently the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture. He is the author, with Marjory Wentworth, of Taking a Stand: The Evolution of Human Rights, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011. He was President of the International Center for Transitional Justice between 2004 and 2009. He is a Visiting Fellow, Kellogg College, Oxford, and in 2009 and 2010 he was an Advisor to the Prosecutor, International Criminal Court, on Crime Prevention. In the summer of 2009 he was a Scholar-in-Residence at the Ford Foundation, New York. He is also former Special Advisor to the Secretary General (UN) on Prevention of Genocide. At Human Rights Watch he directed the Americas division (1982-1993) and was later General Counsel (1994-1996). He was Executive Director of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights in Costa Rica (1996-1999). From 2000 to 2003 he was a member – and in 2002 the President – of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Organization of American States. He has taught at the University of Notre Dame, Georgetown Law School and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and he teaches regularly at the Oxford Masters Program in International Human Rights Law.
David Petrasek BA (University of Waterloo); LLB (Osgoode Hall, York University); LLM (London School of Economics); Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa. Professor Petrasek has worked in the human rights and conflict resolution fields for over 20 years, with NGOs, the United Nations and research centres, including as Senior Director for Policy at Amnesty International, Research Director at the International Council for Human Rights Policy, and Policy Director at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. His areas of interest include the protection of human rights in times of conflict, the extension of human rights obligations to non-sate actors, the contribution of human rights advocacy to poverty eradication efforts, and the resolution of armed conflict through mediation. He has taught international human rights and humanitarian law courses at universities in Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Most recently he worked as a Special adviser to Irene Khan, then Secretary-General of Amnesty International, and co-authored with her Unheard truths - human rights and poverty, W.M Norton 2009
Patricia Viseur Sellers BA (Rutgers); JD, (Univ. of Pennsylvania); Dra. Hon Causa (C.U.N.Y.); Visiting Fellow Kellogg College of the University of Oxford International lawyer and legal consultant in international human rights law, international criminal law, humanitarian law and human rights law. Special to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict and governments and I.Os and NGOs. From 1994-2007, Professor Sellers was the Legal Advisor for Gender Related Crimes and Senior Acting Trial Attorney in the Office of the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In that capacity, she advised teams of investigators and trial attorneys on the prosecution of sex-based crimes under the tribunals' Statutes and pertinent doctrines of humanitarian law. She has lectured widely and authored numerous articles on international criminal law. The most recent is " Wartime FemaleSlavery : Enslavement?" in the Cornell University Journal of International law. Prior to her work as an international prosecutor, Professor Sellers served at the Directorate General for External Relations at the European Commission, the Ford Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, and the Philadelphia Defender Association. She is the recipient of the American Society of International Law's Prominent Women in International Law award.
Andrew Shacknove AB (Bowdoin); PhD (Yale); JD (Harvard); MA (Oxon). University Lecturer in Law and Director of Legal Studies, University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education and Faculty of Law, Oxford. Formerly a lawyer with UNHCR in Malaysia, Dr Shacknove was for many years a consultant with the United Kingdom Home Office Asylum Division. Between 1990 and 1993 he was Joyce Pearce Research Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Dr Shacknove has written on the refugee definition, political asylum, ethical aspects of refugee policy and refugee status determination procedures in Europe and North America. Dr Shacknove works on a pro bono basis with detained asylum-seekers in Oxford.
Patrick Thornberry CMG LLB (London), LLM, PhD (Keele) is Professor of International Law at Keele University and Visiting Fellow, Kellogg College, Oxford. Since 2001, Professor Thornberry has been the UK member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), and acted as Rapporteur of that Committee from 2002-2008. Among his many publications, works such as International Law and the Rights of Minorities (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991), Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights (Manchester University Press, 2002), and (with M. Amor Martin), Minorities in Europe (Council of Europe Publishing, 2004) are prominent in the field of international law and human rights. Professor Thornberry is a former Chairman of Minority Rights Group and has worked as legal consultant to a variety of intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. In HM Queen Elizabeth’s New Years Honours List of 2006, Patrick Thornberry was awarded a CMG – Companion of St Michael and St George – for services to international human rights, on the nomination of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
Geraldine Van Bueren LLB (Wales); LLM (London) is one of the drafters of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child; Professor of International Human Rights Law in Queen Mary, University of London; WP Schreiner Professor at the University of Cape Town and Visiting Fellow, Kellogg College. She is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers and also a Fellow of Goodenough College. Prof Van Bueren is the author of The International Law on the Rights of the Child (Kluwer) and Childhood Abused (Dartmouth) and has acted as a consultant to the Commonwealth and to the United Nations.
Frans Viljoen MA, LLB, LLD (Pretoria); LLM (Cantab). Director of the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria. He is also the academic co-ordinator of the LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa), presented by the Centre, in collaboration with nine partner law faculties across Africa. He has published numerous articles dealing with international human rights law, and the book International human rights law in Africa (2007). He is editor-in-chief of the African Human Rights Law Journal and co-editor of the English and French versions of the African Human Rights Law Reports. He further acted as consultant to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Organization of African Unity/African Union.
Former teaching staff include:
Prof Abdullahi A.An-Na`im
Professor of Law, Emory University
Mr Hasan Bakirci
Senior Lawyer, European Court of Human Rights
Prof Christine Chinkin
Professor of International Law, London School of Economics
Dr Radhika Coomaraswamy
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict
Prof Marie-Bénédicte Dembour
Professor of Law and Anthropology, University of Sussex
Justice Richard Goldstone
Constitutional Court of South Africa
Prof Paul Hoffman
Schonbrun, De Simone, Seplow, Harris and Hoffman LLP
Ms Hina Jilani
Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
Mr John McManus
Counsel, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Section, Department of Justice, Canada
Prof William Schabas
Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, Galway
Prof Sigrun Skogly
Professor of Human Rights Law, Lancaster University
Prof David Weissbrodt
Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School