SPEAKERS

Louise Amoore
Professor Louise Amoore researches and teaches in the area of contemporary security and society. Among her recent research projects, Contested Borders focused on the impact of new security techniques and technologies on public space and the capacity for public challenge. The published work from the project emphasised the changing landscape of justice and human rights in the context of risk-based targeting of people. Together with Prof. Marieke de Goede (Amsterdam), the Data Wars project has examined how mundane and routine forms of data are mobilized for security interventions that act below the thresholds of conventional evidence and doubt, from deportation and detention to asset freezing and blacklisting.

Amir Attaran
Amir Attaran is an Associate Professor in the Faculties of Law and Medicine at the University of Ottawa, and holds the Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health and Global Development Policy.  Dr. Amir Attaran is by training both a lawyer (LL.B., Vancouver) and a biologist (D. Phil, Oxford; M.S., Caltech), whose research covers the gamut of both fields to explore different drivers of human well-being, particularly in the fields of human rights, health, and/or international development.  Current research interests include the engagement of the NATO militaries in the armed conflict in Afghanistan and problems of blacklisting and targeted sanctions.  Dr. Attaran has published widely in the leading journals of both the legal and biomedical professions, such as the Yale and Stanford Journals of International Law, The Lancet, and The Journal of the American Medical Association. He is also a frequent commentator in the press, having written for the Globe and Mail, New York Times, The Guardian, and the Literary Review of Canada, among others.

Bill Bowring
Bill Bowring specializes in international law, human rights, minority rights and Russian and Post-Soviet law.  He was appointed Professor of Law at Birkbeck College, University of London in September 2006 and is a practising barrister. In 2002 Bill founded and is now Chair of the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC) in partnership with the Russian NGO Memorial.  He is President of the European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights (ELDH – in 16 countries); International Secretary of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers; a Council Member of Liberty; a Trustee of the Redress Trust (reparation for torture survivors); President of the SCRSS (Society for Cooperation in Russian and Soviet Studies); an Executive member of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales; and a Fellow of the Human Rights Centre, University of Essex. Bill is an expert for the Council of Europe, EU and other IGOs on human and minority rights issues. He has published over 80 books, articles and chapters. He speaks Russian.

Cori Crider
Cori Crider of the Legal Director of the Secret Prisons and Guantánamo team at Reprieve, London.  Cori joined Reprieve in 2006, supported by a human rights fellowship from Harvard Law School. From 2007-2009, she served as a Guantánamo Staff Attorney, becoming Legal Director in November 2009. She now supervises all of Reprieve’s casework on Guantánamo, Bagram, and other secret prisons.  She directs our pursuit of accountability for abuses in the ‘war on terror’, and our quest to bring the rule of law to prisoners in other secret sites.  She also keeps her hand in with the habeas cases, as well as resettlement work for Guantánamo’s asylum seekers—prisoners who face torture or execution if repatriated to their home countries. Cori graduated from Harvard with a J.D. in June 2006. During law school, she monitored U.N. human rights bodies in Geneva; investigated and reported on dams that harmed indigenous groups in Cambodia; and helped sue corporations for exploitative and abusive practices in Nigeria and South Africa.  She holds a B.A. from the University of Texas – Austin in History and Plan II.

Marieke de Goede
Marieke de Goede is Professor of Political Science, with a specialization in the External Relations of the European Union, at the University of Amsterdam. Her research project European Security Culture focuses on the turn to preemption and precaution in contemporary European security practice. Her bookSpeculative Security: the Political of Pursuing Terrorist Monies (forthcoming, University of Minnesota Press, 2012), analyses the different axes of the fight against terrorism financing and their political implications. She has previously published, with Louise Amoore, the edited volume Risk and the War on Terror (Routledge, 2008). Prof. de Goede is a member of the Commissie Vrede & Veiligheid (Peace and Security Committee) that advises the Dutch government; she is also a member of the advisory boards of Environment and Planning D: Society and Space and the Journal of Cultural Economy.

Véronique Dudouet
Véronique Dudouet works as senior researcher at Berghof Conflict Research, Berlin (Germany) since 2005, where she coordinates a research program on non-state armed groups and political/security transitions. She holds an MA  and PhD in Conflict Resolution from Bradford University (UK), as well as a postgraduate research diploma (DEA) in International Relations and Security and a BA in Political Science from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Toulouse (France). Her recent relevant publications include Mediating Peace with Proscribed Armed Groups (USIP Special Report No. 239, June 2010) and From War to Politics: Resistance/Liberation Movements in Transition (Berghof Report No. 17, Berghof Conflict Research, 2009).

Wolfgang Grenz
Wolfgang Grenz was born in 1947 in Lützen near Leipzig. After studying law in Cologne he completed his legal training and took the bar exam in 1978. Since 1979 he has been working in the German secretariat of Amnesty International, first in Bonn, from 2002 in Berlin. He was the first desk officer for political refugees and later was appointed head of the refugee unit. Since 2000 he is head of the division countries, themes and asylum. He represented Amnesty International in several hearings on the protection of refugees in the Bundestag, in regional parliaments and in the European Parliament. Wolfgang Grenz is a board member of the UN refugee program and member of the expert forum of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). At the moment he is also deputy secretary general of Amnesty International Germany.

Ben Hayes
Ben Hayes has worked for the civ­il lib­er­ties or­gani­za­tion State­watch, Lon­don, since 1996. He spe­cial­izes in EU Jus­tice and Home Af­fairs Law. Ben al­so works with the Tran­s­na­tio­n­al In­sti­tute in ­Am­s­ter­dam.  He is also re­tained as a con­sul­tant for a num­ber of in­ter­na­tio­n­al hu­man rights, so­cial jus­tice and de­vel­op­ment or­gani­za­tions. He has a PhD from Magee Col­lege, Der­ry/Lon­don­der­ry, and cur­rent­ly works as a Le­gal An­alyst with the ECCHR, as­sist­ing in the Coun­tert­er­rorism and Hu­man Rights pro­gram and is the co-author (with Gavin Sullivan) of Blacklisted: Targeted Sanctions, Preemptive Security and fundamental rights (2010).

Hannes Honecker
Hannes Honecker is a Berlin-based lawyer, with specialist expertise in criminal and labour law.  Hannes was born in 1966 at Lake Constance and brought up in Southern Germany (Hesse) and the USA.  After attending Law School in Frankfurt/Main, he cross-qualified in 1997 as a lawyer and specialist solicitor in Berlin. He is currently a partner in a law firm with Jan Bornkessel and cooperates with other lawyers including Rüdiger Jung, Elke Frey, Gerd Kurz-Simshäuser and Clemens Rothkegel.  Hannes is also a member of the Republikanischer Anwältinnen- und Anwälteverein (RAV).

Wolfgang Kaleck
The Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al and co-foun­der of ECCHR, a lawy­er spe­cial­iz­ing in crim­i­nal law, has estab­lished an in­ter­na­tio­n­al rep­u­ta­tion as an ad­vo­cate for hu­man rights. He made a name for him­self when he filed suit against the U.S. De­fense Min­is­ter Do­n­ald Rums­feld for war crimes and tor­ture com­mitt­ed at Abu Ghraib and Guan­ta­na­mo Bay. Af­ter com­plet­ing his law de­gree in Bonn in 1990, Kaleck served as a le­gal in­tern at the Comis­sion de Dere­chos Hu­manos de Gu­ate­mala. Af­ter found­ing the law firm Kaleck.Hum­mel.Recht­san­wälte in 1991, he worked as a spe­cial­ist so­lic­i­tor in crim­i­nal law. Since 1998 he has been an ad­vo­cate for the Koali­tion der Straflosigkeit, which fights to hold Ar­gentinean mil­i­tary of­fi­cials ac­count­able for the mur­der and dis­ap­pear­ance of Ger­mans dur­ing the Ar­gen­tine dic­ta­tor­ship.  Mr Kaleck is a high­ly sought af­ter spe­cial­ist, and an ac­tive publi­cist on hu­man rights sub­jects. He is a mem­ber of the Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil at the Cen­ter for Eu­ro­pean Le­gal Pol­i­cy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bre­men (ZERP), the former chair­man of the Re­publi­can Wo­m­en Lawy­ers and At­tor­neys As­so­ci­a­tion (RAV) and former Vice Presi­dent of the Eu­ro­pean Demo­crat­ic Lawy­ers (DFA).  Kaleck is high­ly sought af­ter hu­man rights ex­pert.

Sarah Knuckey
Sarah Knuckey is the Director of the Project on Extrajudicial Executions at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York University School of Law.  Since 2007, she has been an Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, carrying out field investigations of killings, and advising on extrajudicial executions law and policy.  In 2011, she was appointed Adjunct Assistant Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law, and Extraordinary Lecturer at the University of Pretoria, Center for Human Rights.  Previously, she was a Clerk to the Hon Justice Michael Kirby at the High Court of Australia, Fulbright Postgraduate Scholar, Lionel Murphy Postgraduate Scholar, Harvard Human Rights Program Summer Fellow, and Everett Public Interest Internship recipient (at Human Rights Watch). She has a BA and LLB (Hons) (University of Western Australia), and an LLM (Harvard).

Wolfgang Neskovic

Manfred Nowak
Man­fred Nowak is Pro­fes­sor for In­ter­na­tio­n­al Law and Hu­man Rights at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vien­na and Co-Di­rec­tor of the Lud­wig Boltz­mann In­sti­tute of Hu­man Rights (BIM). From 2004 to 2010 he was the UN-Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Tor­ture. In this func­tion he pub­lished a crit­i­cal re­port on the US-de­ten­tion camp Guan­tá­na­mo, in which he ac­cused the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca of vi­o­lat­ing in­ter­na­tio­n­al Hu­man Rights stan­dards. Man­fred Nowak is head of an in­de­pen­dent Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion at the Aus­trian Min­istry of In­te­ri­or and, since 2010, Vice-Presi­dent of the Aus­trian UN­ES­CO-Com­mis­sion. He has al­so been a mem­ber of the In­ter­na­tio­n­al Com­mis­sion of Ju­rists (ICJ) since 1995.

Matt Pollard
Matt Pollard has been a legal adviser at Amnesty International’s International Secretariat in London since 2007. He previously worked for the Association for the Prevention of Torture, based in Geneva, after practising law in Canada. He co-authored the third edition of Sir Nigel Rodley’s The Treatment of Prisoners under International Law (Oxford University Press, 2009) and is currently completing a PhD, at the University of Essex, on secrecy and isolation of prisoners from the outside world under international human rights and humanitarian law.

Michael Ratner
Michael Ratner is Presi­dent of the Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tio­n­al Rights (CCR), a non-pro­f­it le­gal or­gani­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to ad­vanc­ing and pro­tect­ing the rights guar­an­teed by the Unit­ed States Con­sti­tu­tion and the Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights. Over the last four de­cades CCR has lent its ex­per­tise and sup­port to vir­tu­al­ly ev­ery pop­u­lar move­ment for so­cial and ra­cial jus­tice. CCR com­bats the il­le­gal ex­pan­sion of ex­ecu­tive pow­er and the Amer­i­can tor­ture pro­grams and rep­re­sents vic­tims of tor­ture, ren­di­tion and do­mes­tic spy­ing.  Michael has been co-counsel in rep­re­sent­ing Guan­ta­na­mo Bay de­tai­nees in the Unit­ed States Supreme Court in 2004.  He is the au­thor of many books and ar­ti­cles, in­clud­ing The Trial of Do­n­ald Rums­feld A Pros­e­cu­tion by Book, Against War with Iraq and Guan­ta­na­mo: What the World Should Know and the text­book, In­ter­na­tio­n­al Hu­man Rights Liti­ga­tion in U. S. Courts. He has taught law at Yale Law School and Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty Law School.  The re­cipi­ent of many hon­ors, Michael was al­so in­clud­ed in The Na­tio­n­al Law Jour­nal’s list of “100 of the Most In­flu­en­tial Lawy­ers in Amer­i­ca.”

Chris Rogers
Chris Rogers is a program officer for the Afghanistan-Pakistan Regional Policy Initiative of the Open Society Institute (OSI), focusing on conflict-related detentions and civilian casualties. Prior to joining the Open Society Foundations, Chris was the research fellow in Pakistan for the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), investigating civilian casualties from military operations, terrorism, and drone strikes and advocating for victim assistance programs. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2009 where he worked with UNHCR in Jordan on Iraqi refugee protection and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza and served as an executive editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal.

Chris also worked with Human Rights Watch on the negotiations of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and with the International Center for Transitional Justice in Namibia through the Harvard Human Rights Program. Prior to law school, Rogers worked with development NGOs in Rwanda and South Africa. He received an MPhil in International Development from Oxford University and BA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Gavin Sullivan
Gavin Sul­li­van is a so­lic­i­tor from the Unit­ed King­dom and Aus­tralia with a back­ground in public law, hu­man rights and public in­ter­est liti­ga­tion. Pri­or to join­ing ECCHR, he worked as a liti­ga­tor chal­leng­ing UK state au­thor­i­ties with Leigh Day & Co (Lon­don) and Public In­ter­est Lawy­ers (Bir­m­ing­ham) on cas­es en­gag­ing hu­man rights (do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tio­n­al) and in­ter­na­tio­n­al hu­mani­tarian law is­sues. He al­so taught public law at Birk­beck Col­lege, Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don. Gavin currently directs ECCHR´s Coun­tert­er­rorism and Hu­man Rights pro­gram.  He is the author  (along with Ben Hayes) of Blacklisted: Targeted Sanctions, Pre-emptive Security and Fundamental Rights (insert link).  Gavin is actively involved in ECCHR’s litigation before the Spanish courts against US officials responsible for torture, he has previously sought (along with lawyers at CCR) to indict George Bush for torture in Switzerland (insert link: www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/feb/…/george-bush-trip-to-switzerland) and he currently represents a number of blacklisted individuals seeking delisting before the UN and EU courts.

Anastassia Tsoukala
Anastassia Tsoukala is Professor of Criminology at the University Paris 11; Senior Researcher at the University Paris 5-Sorbonne; member of the (Greek) National Commission for Human Rights; and Associate Editor of the political sciences quarterly Cultures & Conflits (France). She is working on security policies and human rights in Europe, and on the social construction of threat. Her recent publications include: Football hooliganism in Europe. Security and civil liberties in the balance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Terror, Insecurity and Liberty. Illiberal practices of liberal regimes after 9/11 (Routledge, 2008; co-edited with Didier Bigo); ‘The social construction and control of danger in counter-terrorism’, Alternatives. Global, Local, Political (special issue, 33(2), 2008; co-edited with Jef Huysmans).

Wouter G. Werner
Wouter G. Werner is professor public international law at VU University, Amsterdam. His main fields of interest are international legal theory, the interplay between international law and international politics and the international legal regime on the use of force.  Recent publications concern the politics of legal cosmopolitanism, critical analyses of Carl Schmitt’s international legal theory, and the political implications of the International Criminal Court.  He is Chair of the COST Action IS1003 on International Law between Constitutionalization and Fragmentation.

Ben Wizner
Ben Wizner is the Litigation Director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. He has litigated numerous cases involving post-9/11 human rights violations, including lawsuits challenging the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program, lawsuits challenging secret government watch lists and other unlawful airport security policies, and a suit challenging the government’s authority to use lethal force against U.S. citizens without due process. He has written widely on issues relating to detention, military commissions, state secrets, and accountability for torture. He has also appeared regularly in the media, testified before Congress, and traveled several times to Guantánamo Bay to monitor military commission trials. Ben is a graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Law. Prior to working at the ACLU, he served as a law clerk to the Hon. Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

Alice Wyss
Alice Wyss works for Amnesty International’s International Secretariat in London as a researcher on the EU team, covering a number of different countries including the United Kingdom. Since she began at Amnesty International in March 2010, she has been closely working on issues related to counter-terrorism and national security, and is currently conducting research on secrecy in the UK. She previously worked for University College London on an ESCR funded research project “Judicial Legitimacy and Authority of Supranational Human Rights Courts”, following the completion of her Masters in Human Rights.