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Conference
Accountability now!
Social and environmental dimensions of human rights
in the UN summit year 2015
Berlin, Friday, June 12, 2015
Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Schumannstr. 8, Berlin-Mitte
Biographies
Désiré Assogbavi, Head of Oxfam Liaison Office to the African Union, Addis Ababa
Désiré Assogbavi is the founding Head of the Oxfam International Liaison Office to the African Union in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia since 2009. Previously, he served in Oxfam Great Britain for four years as PanAfrica Senior Policy Analyst (2006–2009). Before joining Oxfam he was the Africa Team Leader of the
International Justice Programme of the World Federalist Movement–Institute for Global Policy in New York
from 2001 to 2006.
From 1997 to 2001, elected by the Parliament of Togo, Assogbavi served in both the National Human
Rights Commission and the Inter-Ministerial Commission for the Implementation of International Humanitarian Law as Commissioner. During the same period he produced and presented civic education radio
programmes at the National Radio of Togo (Radio-Togo) and was appointed in 1997 as Head of the Civic
Education Department. Assogbavi has also worked for four years as a researcher with the Nobel Prize
winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and has contributed to the publication of four
global annual reports of the Brussels-based Landmine Monitor.
He has published and presented more than sixty articles and papers on various issues including international humanitarian law, international justice, human development issues, civil service, civic space, the
African Union African politics etc.
Assogbavi studied in Lomé, Togo, Strasbourg, France, Montreal, Canada, and Salzburg, Austria. A lawyer
and Citizen of Togo and the United States, he speaks French and English.
Jochen von Bernstorff, Professor of Constitutional Law, Public International Law and Human Rights Law,
Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen
Prof. Dr. Jochen von Bernstorff (LL.M.) has held the Chair for Constitutional Law, International Law, and
Human Rights at the Faculty of Law of the University of Tübingen since 2011 and teaches as a visiting
professor at the Foreign Service Academy of the German Foreign Office, the universities of PanthéonAssas Paris (Institut des hautes études internationales) and Aix-Marseille, and National Taiwan University.
He studied law at the universities of Marburg and Poitiers, and holds an LL.M. from the European University Institute in Florence. He was awarded his doctorate at the University of Mannheim in 2000 for his dissertation, The Public International Law Theory of Hans Kelsen: Believing in Universal Law, which was
published in English translation by Cambridge University Press in 2010. After his diplomatic training, he
worked in the diplomatic service from 2003 to 2007 as part of the task force for multilateral human rights
policy of the German Foreign Office and was a member of several German delegations to the United Nations. In 2007, he moved to a research position at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law
Biographies
Conference „Accountability now!“ - Berlin, June 12, 2015
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and International Law in Heidelberg. He went to the Lauterpacht Centre at Cambridge as a visiting fellow
in 2009 and completed his habilitation at the Goethe University Frankfurt in 2011 with the work, Core Elements in the Protection of Fundamental and Human Rights. Jochen von Bernstorff considers himself a
generalist in international law and its theoretical underpinnings, with a focus on human rights, environmental and development issues, and the United Nations. Following his active duty in the German Foreign
Office, he also worked frequently as an adviser and expert for the German Federal Government and the
United Nations (FAO/UNEP/World Bank).
Rachel Davis, Managing Director, Shift, New York
Rachel is an Australian lawyer with extensive experience in business and human rights. She served as
senior legal advisor to Professor John Ruggie, the former Special Representative of the UN SecretaryGeneral, and helped develop the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. She is now Managing Director of Shift, the leading center of expertise on the UN Guiding Principles. Founded in 2011,
Shift’s team of experts works globally with businesses, governments, civil society and international organizations to embed the UN Guiding Principles into practice.
Rachel is also a Research Fellow with the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at Harvard Kennedy
School, where she has led work on the costs of company-community conflict in the extractive industry.
Previously, Rachel served as a strategy and policy advisor to the UN Special Advisor on the ‘Responsibility to Protect’, clerked at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague
and at the High Court of Australia, and served in the Australian Attorney-General’s Department. Rachel is
a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of New South Wales in Sydney, where she also
lectured in law.
Cândido Grzybowski, Director of the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (IBASE), Rio de
Janeiro
Cândido Grzybowski is a philosopher and sociologist. Since the year 2000 until 2014, he has been General Director of the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (IBASE), one of the most influential
organisations in Brazilian civil society. From 2014, he is member of the collegiate direction. He was an
active member of the organizing committee of the World Social Forum and a member of the WSF International Council. Since that time he has been one of the pillars of this important world-scale civil-society
event. Candido Grzybowski is former Professor of Sociology of Development at the Fundacão Getulio
Vargas, in Rio de Janeiro (1979-1991). He has a doctorate degree from the University of Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne), France, and post-doctoral studies from the University College London, UK.
Maina Kiai, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Office
for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations, Nairobi/Genf
Maina Kiai is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of
association. He took up his functions on 1 May 2011, for an initial period of three years. His mandate was
renewed in 2014 for an additional three years.
A lawyer trained at Nairobi and Harvard Universities, Mr. Kiai has spent the last twenty years campaigning
for human rights and constitutional reform in Kenya – notably as founder and Executive Director of the
unofficial Kenya Human Rights Commission, and then as Chairman of Kenya’s National Human Rights
Commission (2003-2008), where he won a national reputation for his courageous and effective advocacy
against official corruption, in support of political reform, and against impunity following the violence that
convulsed Kenya in 2008, causing thousands of deaths.
He is currently working with InformAction, a community organizing NGO in Kenya.
Biographies
Conference „Accountability now!“ - Berlin, June 12, 2015
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Mr. Kiai has worked with the International Council on Human Rights Policy, a Geneva-based think-tank
which produces research reports and briefing papers with policy recommendations; as Director of Amnesty
International’s Africa Programme (1999-2001), and the Africa Director of the International Human Rights
Law Group (now Global Rights, 2001-2003). He held research fellowships at the Danish Institute for Human Rights (Copenhagen), the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington), and the
TransAfrica Forum (Washington).
Stephen Leonard, President, Climate Justice Programme, Australia
Stephen Leonard is an International Lawyer and President of the Climate Justice Programme. Stephen
commenced his legal career as a litigation lawyer in Australia having spent more than a decade in private
practice. He has experience in protection orders for victims of crime as well as representation of aboriginal
communities opposing development on their traditional lands. In private practice Stephen provided extensive pro bono legal services to environmental and human rights groups including Friends of the
Earth, Gundjeimi Aboriginal Corporation, The Orangutan Project and groups in East Timor following independence.
Stephen was elected President of the Climate Justice Programme, a global climate justice legal organisation in 2010. He has been engaged within the international UNFCCC climate talks since 2008 providing
legal and policy advice to civil society organisations, indigenous groups, intergovernmental organisations
and developing country Governments.
Stephen has written multiple briefing papers and submissions concerning issues in the climate negotiations concerning rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, biodiversity protection and improved
governance concerning forests and land use and loss and damage and is a co-author of the chapter Securing Planetary Life Sources for Future Generations: Legal Actions Deriving from the Ancient Sovereign Trust Obligation in the book Threatened Island Nations, Legal Implications of Rising Seas and a
Changing Climate.
Anja Mihr, Associate Professor, Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), University of Utrecht
Anja Mihr is Associate Professor at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), University of Utrecht,
Netherlands. She is one of two principle investigators and research directors of the ORA project on the
Impact of Transitional Justice on democratic institution building. Her work focuses on Governance, Human
Rights, Democratization and benchmarking.
Previously she has been working as Head of Rule of Law at The Hague Institute for Global Justice and
she was Visiting Professor for Human Rights at Peking University Law School in China and worked for the
Raoul Wallenberg Research Institute on Human Rights, Lund University in 2008. From 2006-2008 she was
the European Program Director for the European Master Degree in Human Rights and Democratization
(E.MA) at the European Inter-University Center for Human Rights in Venice (EIUC), Italy. She received her
Ph.D in Political Sciences from the Free University in Berlin, Germany, in 2001. Mihr has worked for Amnesty International and the German Institute for Human Rights. Starting as a assistant professor with
UNESCO Chair in Human Rights at the University of Magdeburg in 2002 in Germany, she was later a
research director at the Humboldt University of Berlin carrying out the research project "Teaching Human
Rights in Europe" from 2003-2006. From 2002-2006 Anja Mihr also served as Chair of Amnesty International Germany.
She has published a number of books and articles on international human rights regimes, human rights
education, transitional justice, democratization, European human rights system and NGOs and has been
co-editor of the European Yearbook of Human Rights as well as the German Journal for Human Rights.
Biographies
Conference „Accountability now!“ - Berlin, June 12, 2015
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Claudia Roth MP, Alliance 90/ the Greens, Vice President of the German Bundestag, Berlin
Claudia Roth was born in Ulm in 1955. After obtaining her Abitur (higher-education entrance qualification),
she went on to study Theatre Studies at LMU Munich. After two semesters, she left the lecture halls for the
theatre and worked as dramaturgy assistant and later a dramaturge at the Städtische Bühnen theatre in
Dortmund and Hoffmans Comic Theater in Unna. From 1982 to 1985 she managed the rock band Ton
Steine Scherben. She was press spokeswoman for the first parliamentary group of the Greens in the Bundestag. In 1989 she was elected to the European Parliament and remained a member until 1998. From
1994, she was chairwoman of The Greens in the European Parliament. She was elected to the German
Bundestag in 1998 and from 1998 to March 2001 served as chairwoman of the newly formed Committee
on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid. From March 2003 to October 2004 she gave a face to human
rights policy in Germany in her role as Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid at the
Federal Foreign Office. Her political activities have always focused particularly on human and civil rights,
climate change, fighting racism, and culture. She is an active and influential advocate of the “One World”
philosophy and of the alter-globalisation movement in Germany. Roth was elected chairwoman of Alliance
90/The Greens for the first time in 2001, and was subsequently re-elected in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 and
2012. She left this post in 2013 and was elected as Vice President of the German Bundestag on 22 October. Alongside her political activities, Roth has been the spokeswoman of the Sustainability Commission of
the German Football Association (DFB) since 2010 and is a member of the board of trustees of the DFB’s
cultural foundation. She is a member of the Humanist Union, Pro Asyl and the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany.
Sigrun Skogly, Professor of Human Rights Law, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Sigrun Skogly is Professor of Human Rights Law at Lancaster University, where she also serves as Associate Dean for Postgraduate Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. She has written extensively on human rights obligations, and has several books and articles on extraterritorial human rights
obligations, including Beyond National Borders: Human Rights Obligations in International Cooperation
(Intersentia, 2006), and Universal Human Rights and Extraterritorial Obligations (edited with Mark Gibney
– Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2010). She was part of the expert group adopting the Maastricht Principles
on States Extraterritorial Obligations in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in September
2011.
Barbara Unmüßig, President, Heinrich Böll Foundation, Berlin
Barbara Unmüßig has been the President of the Heinrich Böll Foundation since 2002. She is responsible
for its strategy and programme development for Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and for the
Gunda Werner Institute for Feminism and Gender Democracy. Her work focuses on issues of globalisation
and international climate policy, national and international gender policy, and the promotion of democracy
and conflict prevention.
In 2000, she co-founded the German Institute for Human Rights (Deutsches Institut für Menschenrechte,
DIMR), a human rights organisation, and has been on its board of trustees since 2001. From 1996 to
2001, she chaired the supervisory board of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. She also chairs the jury of the
Anne Klein Women’s Award.
Her numerous contributions to periodicals and books have covered global governance, international environmental issues, and gender policy.
Biographies
Conference „Accountability now!“ - Berlin, June 12, 2015
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Michael Windfuhr, Deputy Director, German Institute for Human Rights, Berlin
Michael Windfuhr is a political scientist (University of Heidelberg). Since 2011 he is Deputy Director of the
German Institute for Human Rights, the national human rights institution of Germany. Prior to his current
post he served as Human Rights Director of Bread for the World, the development organisation of the
Protestant church of Germany, for five years. Between 1988 and 2006 he worked with FIAN-International
(FoodFirst Information and Action Network), an international human rights organisation that focuses on the
realisation of the right to adequate food. Initially he coordinated FIAN's Latin America work, concentrating
on land conflicts and agrarian reform. He represented FIAN at the United Nations Human Rights system
from 1992 onward. In the last 10 years, he has contributed to international standard-setting for the right to
food, e.g. through his active involvement in the elaboration of the “Voluntary Guidelines on the progressive
implementation of the right to adequate food”, adopted by the FAO in November 2004. He became Secretary General of FIAN in 2005. His main fields of expertise are: human rights policies, international relations
theory, international economic and development policies. He has published extensively, particularly on
economic, social and cultural rights as well as on trade and agricultural policies.
Information:
Ulrike Seidel, Project Management, Department Democracy and Peace, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
Email, seidel@boell.de, Phone +49 (0)30-285 34 -330
A cooperation of the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the German Institute for Human Rights
Biographies
Conference „Accountability now!“ - Berlin, June 12, 2015
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