Members
The Africa Group for Justice and Accountability supports efforts to strengthen justice and accountability measures in Africa through domestic and regional capacity building, advice and outreach, and enhancing cooperation between Africa and the International Criminal Court.
Biography
Aïchatou Mindaoudou is the former United Nations Special Representative in Côte d’Ivoire, former Acting Joint UN/AU Special Representative in Sudan Darfur, and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Niger.
Aïchatou Mindaoudou
Biography
Fatiha Serour is an Algerian national who has held numerous positions within the United Nations and international non-governmental sector. She is currently the Director of Serour Associates for Inclusion and Equity, an association focusing on supporting inclusive approaches to development.
Previously, she served as Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Somalia (2013-2014), as Senior Adviser in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (2000-2006), and as Director of the Youth Affairs Division, Commonwealth Secretariat, overseeing the largest youth programme in 54 Commonwealth countries (2006-2010).
In her position as Regional Director for Europe, North Africa and the Middle East at the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) from 2010-2012, she led national and international teams in implementing projects for the United Nations system, international nancial institutions, governments and other partners in world aid.
Ms. Serour holds a PhD in Political Economy and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Aberdeen. She is uent in French, Arabic and English.
Fatiha Serour
Biography
Dapo Akande is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Oxford where he is also the Co-Director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC) and of the Oxford Martin Programme on Human Rights for Future Generations. He is Yamani Fellow at St. Peter’s College, Oxford. Dapo Akande is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Oxford where he is also the Co-Director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC) and of the Oxford Martin Programme on Human Rights for Future Generations. He is Yamani Fellow at St. Peter’s College, Oxford. He has held visiting professorships at Yale Law School, the University of Miami School of Law and the Catolica Global Law School, Lisbon. He was the 2015 Sir Ninian Stephen Visiting Scholar at the University of Melbourne Law School’s Asia- Pacific Centre for Military Law.
Prof. Akande has published papers on varied areas of international law in a number of scholarly journals, including the American Journal of International Law, European Journal of International Law, British Yearbook of International Law, International & Comparative Law Quarterly and Journal of International Criminal Justice. His article, “The Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over Nationals of Non-Parties: Legal Basis and Limits”, was awarded the 2003 Journal of International Criminal Justice Prize, and his 2016 co-authored piece, “The International Legal Framework Regulating the Use of Armed Drones”, in the International Comparative Law Quarterly was selected for the ICLQ Annual Lecture 2017.
Dapo Akande is a member of the Editorial Boards of the European Journal of International Law and the American Journal of International Law, and previously sat on the Board of the African Journal of International and Comparative Law. He is founding editor of EJIL:Talk! the widely read scholarly blog of the European Journal of International Law.
He has acted as consultant, expert and adviser on international law issues to states, non-governmental organisations, international courts and tribunals, United Nations bodies, the African Union Commission, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). He is currently a legal adviser to the UK Parliament’s All Party Parliamentary Group on Drones inquiry into the ways in which the UK works with partners on the use of drones.
Dapo Akande
Biography
Navanethem “Navi” Pillay holds a B.A. LL.B. from Natal University South Africa, as well as a Master of Law and Doctorate of Juridical Science from Harvard University.
In 1967, she became the first woman to start a law practice in her home province of Natal, where she acted as a defence attorney for anti-apartheid activists, exposing torture and helping establish key rights for prisoners on Robben Island. She also worked as a lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In 1995, after the end of apartheid, Ms. Pillay was appointed as acting judge of the South African High Court, and in the same year was elected by the UN General Assembly to sit as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), where she served a total of eight years, the last four (1999-2003) as President. She played a critical role in the ICTR’s groundbreaking jurisprudence on rape as genocide, as well as on issues of freedom of speech and hate propaganda.
In 2003, Navi Pillay was appointed as a judge of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where she served in the Appeals Chamber until August 2008. Her appointment as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights followed in 2008, a post she was to hold until 31 August 2014. In April 2015, Ms. Pillay became the 16th Commissioner of the International Commission against the Death Penalty. She was also named chair of the Special Reference Group on Migration and Community Integration in KwaZulu-Natal, a group formed to investigate the immediate and underlying causes of attacks on migrants.
In South Africa, as a member of the Women‘s National Coalition, she contributed to the inclusion of the equality clause in the country’s Constitution that prohibits discrimination on grounds of race, gender, religion and sexual orientation. She co-founded Equality Now, an international women‘s rights organisation, and has been involved with other organisations working on issues relating to children, detainees, victims of torture and domestic violence, and a range of economic, social and cultural rights.
Her current posts include Judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice in the Application under the Genocide Convention by The Gambia against Myanmar, President of the International Commission against the Death Penalty, President of the Advisory Council of the Nuremberg Principles Academy and Trustee of the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Foundation Board of Trustees.
Navi Pillay
Biography
Mohamed Chande Othman is a former Chief Justice of Tanzania, a position he held from 28 December 2010 to 18 January 2017, after stints as both a High Court and Appeal Court Judge. On 21 December 2022, Othman was appointed Chairperson of the Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia.
He currently holds the following posts: Chancellor of Ardhi University, Tanzania; Chairperson, Council of Sokoine University of Agriculture and Applied Sciences; member of the Board of Trustees, The Aga Khan University; and member of the Elders Council of the African Judges and Jurists Forum. Aside from acting as one of the Special Advisers (without portfolio) to the Prosecutors of the International Criminal Court, Othman also serves as an Eminent Person, appointed by the UN Secretary-General under a UN General Assembly mandate and charged with the examination of new information relating to the tragic death on 17-18th September 1961 of the 2nd UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld, and other members of his party. In 2019-2020 he acted as one of nine experts appointed by the Assembly of State Parties to the Independent Expert Review of the International Criminal Court and the Rome Statute System.
Justice Othman’s previous experience includes that of Prosecutor General of East Timor, Chief of Prosecutions of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and Senior Legal Adviser to the Prosecutor of the ICTR. He has also served as a member of the UN Human Rights Council’s High-Level Commission of Inquiry into the Situation in Lebanon following the Israel-Lebanon Armed Conflict in 2006, and as the UN Human Rights Council‘s Independent Expert on the human rights situation in the Sudan (2009-2010). In addition, he has also worked with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
His publications include books and peer-reviewed articles on international humanitarian law, refugee law, criminal law and evidence, and peacekeeping.
Mohamed Chande Othman
Biography
Catherine Samba-Panza was elected president of the Central African Republic in January 2014 by members of the National Transitional Council, the interim parliament, making her the first woman to hold the post. She was president until March 2016, when she handed over power to her successor, Faustin-Archange Touadéra.
Between June 2013 and January 2014, she was appointed the mayor of Bangui by the interim government after she was accepted by both the Seleka rebels and their opponents during the 2012- 2013 conflict due to her reputation for neutrality and incorruptibility.
A successful businesswoman and corporate lawyer, she has also been active in reconciliation efforts and civil society organisations, promoting women’s rights.
Catherine Samba-Panza
Biography
Dr. Fatou Bensouda of The Gambia served as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for nine years, from 2012 to 2021, having been elected to the post by consensus of the Assembly of States Parties on 12 December 2011 and sworn in on 15 June 2012.
Between 1987 and 2000, Mrs. Bensouda successively held the posts of Senior State Counsel, Principal State Counsel, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Solicitor General and Legal Secretary of the Republic, and Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, in which capacity she served as Chief Legal Advisor to the President and Cabinet of The Republic of The Gambia. She has also served as a General Manager of a leading commercial bank in The Gambia.
Her international career as a non-government civil servant formally began at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she worked as a legal adviser and trial attorney before rising to the position of Senior Legal Advisor and Head of the Legal Advisory Unit in the years from 2002 to 2004, after which she joined the ICC as the Court’s first Deputy Prosecutor.
Mrs. Bensouda has served as delegate to United Nations conferences on crime prevention, the Organization of African Unity’s Ministerial Meetings on Human Rights, and as delegate of The Gambia to the meetings of the Preparatory Commission for the ICC.
Mrs. Bensouda has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the distinguished ICJ International Jurists Award (2009) presented by the then President of India P. D. Patil, and the 2011 World Peace Through Law Award presented by the Whitney Harris World Law Institute, Washington University, which recognised her work in advancing the rule of law and thereby contributing to world peace. In October 2021, at the end of her mandate, she was awarded The Outstanding Achievement Award by The International Law Association American Branch.
She is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Middlesex University and Vrije Universiteit, Brussels respectively, and holds a Master of Laws from the International Maritime Law Institute in Malta, making her The Gambia’s first expert in international maritime law and the law of the sea.
Mrs. Bensouda has been listed: by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world (2012); by the New African magazine as one of the “Most Influential Africans;” by Foreign Policy as one of the “Leading Global Thinkers” (2013); and by Jeune Afrique as one of 20 African women who, by their actions and initiatives in their respective roles, advance the African continent (2014).
Fatou Bensouda
Biography
Hassan Bubacar Jallow was sworn in as the Chief Justice of The Gambia on 15 February 2017, after being appointed by newly elected President of The Gambia, Adama Barrow. He is also the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) (2003-2015), the former Prosecutor of the United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations (2012-2016).
He studied law in Tanzania, Nigeria and Great Britain and previously worked as Attorney-General and Minister of Justice in The Gambia (1984-1994) and as Justice of the Gambian Supreme Court (1998-2002), Judge of the Appeals Chamber, UN Special Court for Sierra Leone (2002), Judge Ad Litem of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (2001), and Judge of the Commonwealth Arbitral Tribunal. He has served as a legal consultant to the UN, the Organisation of African Unity, the African Union and the Commonwealth on various matters, including governance, human rights, public law, international law and international criminal justice. He has published various books and papers on his subject of expertise and is the author of “Journey for Justice” (2012). He was made Commander of the National Order of the Republic of The Gambia (CRG) in 1985.
Justice Jallow is a member of the Gambian and the Nigerian Bar Associations, as well as being a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (MCIARB) and the International Association of Prosecutors (IAP). He is Co-Chair of the World Justice Project, a member of the Advisory Council for a Convention on Crimes against Humanity, and a member of the Commonwealth Judges and Magistrates Association.
Hassan Bubacar Jallow
Biography
Richard J. Goldstone graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand with a BA. LLB. cum laude in 1962. After practising as an Advocate at the Johannesburg Bar, he was appointed Senior Counsel in 1976, made Judge of the Transvaal Supreme Court in 1980, and appointed Judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in 1989. From 1991 to 1994, he served as Chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, which came to be known as the Goldstone Commission. From July 1994 to October 2003, he was a Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, where he played a major role in the transition from apartheid South Africa to democracy.
From August 1994 to September 1996, he served as the Chief Prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He has served as an expert in several commissions, high-level groups and task forces, including the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo, the International Task Force on Terrorism, the Investigation into the Iraq Oil for Food Programme and the UN Fact Finding Mission on possible war crimes and international human rights violations committed in Gaza between December 2008 and January 2009. On 6 December 2019, he was appointed by the ICC Assembly of States Parties to the Independent Expert Review of the International Criminal Court and the Rome Statute System. As Chair of the Review, he led a team of eight other experts mandated to make recommendations on reforms to the Court.
Goldstone received the 1994 International Human Rights Award of the American Bar Association, the 2005 Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights, and the 2009 MacArthur Award for International Justice, announced by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He is the author of “For Humanity: Reflections of a War Crimes Investigator” (2001), and the co-author of “International Judicial Institutions: the Architecture of International Justice at Home and Abroad” (2008).
Richard Goldstone
Biography
Femi Falana is a Nigerian human rights activist, lawyer and arbitrator of over 35 years’ standing. He currently combines the posts of Managing Director of Legaltext Nigeria and Editor-in-Chief of Weekly Report of Nigeria, and is a member of the editorial board of the Vanguard Newspaper and the Network for the Defence of Journalists in West Africa.
Aside from stints as a member of the National Executive Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association and legal adviser to the Campaign for Democracy, Mr. Falana’s past positions include that of President of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers, President of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights and President of the West African Bar Association. In addition, he also served as Secretary-General of the African Bar Association from 2000 to 2004. On the international front, he has appeared before the Community Court of Justice (ECOWAS), the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in The Gambia, and the African Court on Human and Peoples‘ Rights in Arusha.
His many awards include the American Bar Association’s International Human Rights Award, the Defender of the Year Award 2000 from the International League for Human Rights (New York), the Bernard Simons Memorial Award for Human Rights from the International Bar Association, and the Gani Fawehinmi Life Time Award on human rights from the Hallmark of Labour Foundation.
In addition, he has been honoured for “Outstanding Leadership, Achievements and Contributions to the Advancement of Civil Society, Human Rights and the process of Democratisation in Nigeria” by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts State Senate, House of Representatives and Boston City Council, and presented with the Knight of Freedom Award by the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria. Among Mr. Falana‘s long list of scholarly papers and publications mention might be made of “Fundamental Rights Enforcement in Nigeria”, “ECOWAS COURT: Law and Practice”, and “Nigerian Law on Socio-economic Rights”.
Femi Falana
Biography
Tiyanjana Maluwa holds the H. Laddie Montague Chair in Law at Pennsylvania State University School of Law, where he was for many years the Associate Dean for International Affairs and, concurrently, Director of the School of International Affairs.
He previously worked as the Legal Counsel of the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) and, subsequently, as the Legal Adviser to the Ofce of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He has held the posts of Professor of Law at the University of Cape Town and Extraordinary Professor of Law at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
He has authored, edited and co-edited a number of books, including “International Law in Post-Colonial Africa” (Kluwer Law International, 1999) and, most recently, “The Pursuit of a Brave New World in International Law: Essays in Honour of John Dugard” (Brill, 2017). He is also the author of numerous articles and book chapters in the felds of public international law, international human rights law and international organisations. He holds a Ph.D. in international law from the University of Cambridge.
Tiyanjana Maluwa
Biography
Dr. Athaliah Molokomme is Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Botswana to Switzerland and the UN Office in Geneva. From October 2005 to December 2016, she was Attorney General of Botswana. She holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Botswana and Swaziland, a Masters in Law from Yale Law School, and a PhD in Law from Leiden University.
She taught law at the University of Botswana from 1981 to 1996, and has researched and published extensively in the felds of family law, customary law, employment law, human rights and gender equality. For the past three decades, she has been a regular speaker at national, regional and international conferences, workshops and seminars in her areas of expertise. She has served on several boards, commissions and professional organisations at a national, regional and international level. Her awards include the Women’s Human Rights Award from Women, Law and Development International in 1993, the Presidential Order of Meritorious Service for Exceptional Service to Botswana in 1999, and the US Ambassador‘s award as one of the Vanguard Women Leaders of Botswana in 2005. From July 1998, Dr. Molokomme was founding head of the Gender Unit at the Secretariat of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), until May 2003 when she was appointed Judge of the High Court of Botswana.
In October 2005, she was appointed to the position of Attorney General of the Republic of Botswana, in which capacity she was the Principal Legal Advisor to the country‘s government under the Constitution, is an ex oficio member of the Botswana Cabinet, and represented the Botswana Government on various Boards, Councils and Committees.
During her tenure as Attorney General, she participated in the annual meetings of the Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC, often as Head of the Botswana Delegation, and various ASP side events. She was an active participant in the Africa Group negotiations that led to the Kampala Amendments at the Review Conference in June 2010. Thereafter, she played a pivotal role in Botswana‘s ratifcation of the Kampala Amendments on the Crime of Aggression on 15 April 2013.
Dr Molokomme is also a member of the Justice Leadership Group, based in The Hague, The Netherlands, and the Advisory Council of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, based in Germany.
Athaliah Molokomme
Biography
Member of the Africa Group for Justice and Accountability, Kaari Betty Murungi is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya with over 30 years’ experience in the practice of law at a national, regional and international level. Educated at the University of Nairobi and Kenya School of Law, she spent a year as a visiting fellow at the Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Programme, researching transitional justice mechanisms. She is currently Professor of Practice in the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, and works as an independent consultant.
Ms. Murungi has broad experience in transitional justice processes, women’s human rights, gender, constitutionalism and governance. Over the past two decades, the focus of her interest and work has been to advance gender justice in international justice and accountability mechanisms, and to promote women’s human rights in the context of violent conflict. Ms. Murungi has worked on these issues in Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Northern Uganda, South Sudan and Kenya. She has been an integral player in the jurisprudence of international criminal law and international humanitarian law insofar as it pertains to gender.
Ms. Murungi served: as Vice Chairperson and Commissioner to the Kenya Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (2009-2010); as the Africa representative on the Board of Directors of the Trust Fund for Victims at the International Criminal Court (2009-2013); as Senior Transitional Justice Advisor to the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC), South Sudan (2016-2018); and, as a member of the Independent Commission of Inquiry for the Occupied Palestinian Territory appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council (July 2018- March 2019). She is a member of the Africa Group for Justice and Accountability, an independent group of senior African experts on international criminal law and human rights, including political figures, members of international and domestic tribunals, and human rights advocates that came together in November 2015 to strengthen justice and accountability in Africa.
Betty Murungi
Biography
After close on 30 years of service at the very highest levels, domestically and internationally, Sierra Leone’s Zainab Hawa Bangura has graciously agreed to become AGJA’s newest member and add her invaluable voice, expertise and experience to the Group’s already formidable asset base. Her early beginnings in the field of insurance soon gave way to a lifetime devoted to social development, governance, international co-operation, conflict-resolution, accountability and peacekeeping.
Ms. Bangura is a dynamic civil society and human rights campaigner and pro- democracy activist, with in-depth knowledge of and insight into sexual- and gender-based violence. Indeed, she has wide-ranging experience of engaging with state and non- state actors, including rebel groups, on sexual-violence- related issues. Her unrelenting commitment to women’s rights, democracy and the fight against corruption and impunity is eloquently borne out by her record as Executive Director of the National Accountability Group, Chair and Co-founder of the Movement for Progress Party of Sierra Leone, and Co-ordinator and Co-founder of the Campaign for Good Governance.
After a two-year stint heading up the Civil Affairs Section of the United Nations Mission in Liberia, Ms. Bangura became only the second woman ever to hold the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation of Sierra Leone, in which capacity she also acted as Chief Adviser and Spokesperson of the President on bilateral and international issues. These initial three years in office were followed by a further two as the country’s Minister of Health and Sanitation, before being appointed United Nations Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, a position she was to retain until March 2017, during which time she also served as Chair of the interagency network, UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict.
In recognition of the selfless — and seemingly — tireless contribution that she has made over the course of her life, Zainab Bangura has received the Africa International Award of Merit for Leadership, the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellowship, the Bayard Rustin Humanitarian Award, the Human Rights Award from the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, the National Endowment for Democracy’s Democracy Award, and the African American Institute’s Distinguished Alumna Award.
Zainab Hawa Bangura
Biography
Abdul Tejan-Cole was Executive Director of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA). Prior to his appointment, Mr. Tejan-Cole served as Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission in Sierra Leone, from December 2007 to April 2010.
His previous positions include: Attorney at the Special Court for Sierra Leone; Deputy Director for the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), Cape Town Ofce; and President of the Sierra Leone Bar Association.
Mr. Tejan-Cole also has extensive experience working with the Open Society Institute (OSI). He served as Board Chair of OSIWA from 2002-2007, and has also served as a member of the Board of the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI).