United Nations Human Rights Council Emergency Session on Systemic Racism in Review

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC

Helena is one of Britain’s most distinguished lawyers and an expert in human rights law, civil liberties and constitutional issues. Helena has spent her professional life giving voice to those who have least power within the system, championing civil liberties and promoting human rights. She has used many public platforms – including the House of Lords, to which she was elevated in 1997 – to argue with passion, wit and humanity for social justice. She has also written and broadcast on a wide range of issues, from medical negligence to terrorism to the rights of women and children.

She is a member of the House of Lords and chair of Justice, the British arm of the International Commission of Jurists. She is a bencher of Gray’s Inn and president of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She was the chair of Charter 88 from 1992 to 1997, the Human Genetics Commission from 1998 to 2007 and the British Council from 1998 to 2004. She also chaired the Power Inquiry, which reported on the state of British democracy and produced the Power Report in 2006. She has received honours for her work on human rights from the governments of France and Italy and has been awarded more than 30 honorary doctorates.

Markus Beham

Markus is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Passau, Germany, and an adjunct lecturer in international law at the University of Vienna, Austria. Prior to that, he worked as an Associate at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, resident in the firm’s Vienna office and as a fellow at the Department of Legal Philosophy of the University of Vienna. The author holds a joint doctoral degree from the Université Paris Ouest – Nanterre la Défense and the University of Vienna and a doctoral degree in history from the latter as well as an LL.M. degree from Columbia Law School in New York.

Dominique Day

Dominique Day is the chair of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, a fact-finding body mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate and report on the situation of people of African descent globally. She is a human rights attorney and leads DAYLIGHT | Rule of Law • Access to Justice • Advocacy, an access to justice platform, where she also maintains a civil rights practice. Internationally, public policy and capacity-building work over the past two decades has focused heavily on racial justice, including in post-conflict and transitional States. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a juris doctor from Stanford Law School.

Margarette May Macaulay

The Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons of African Descent and against Racial Discrimination is Margarette May Macaulay. She is a citizen of Jamaica and was elected as Commissioner on June 16, 2015, by the OAS General Assembly, for a 4-year mandate that starts on January 1, 2016 and ends December 31, 2019. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights designated her for this function on January 28 of 2016. Macaulay holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of London and is currently an attorney in private practice. She serves as Mediator in the Supreme Court of Jamaica and an Associate Arbitrator, in addition to serving as a Notary Public. She served as a Judge for the Inter-American Court of Human Rights from 2007 to 2012, contributing to the formulation of the Court’s Rules of Procedure.

Federica D'Alessandra

Federica D’Alessandra is the founding Executive Director of the Oxford Programme on International Peace and Security at the Blavatnik School of Government's Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict (ELAC). She is also an Academic Affiliate of the Oxford Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, a member of the Steering Committee of the Oxford Network of Peace Studies, and an Adviser to the Harvard Sustainable Peace Initiative, and to the Ferencz International Justice Initiative at the Simon Skjodt Center for Genocide Prevention. Prior to joining Oxford, Federica held various appointments at Harvard University, including at the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government, and at the Harvard Law School, where she focused on mass atrocity response and prevention, transitional justice, national security, and human rights. Her research interests include international law, normative and political theory, US and Italian foreign policy, transatlantic relations, European defense, international organizations, global governance, leadership, ethics, and public policy.

Khin Ohmar

Ms. Khin Ohmar is an experienced peace and security advocate from Myanmar and Founder and Chairperson of the Advisory Board of Progressive Voice, a research and advocacy organization with strong civil society networks in Myanmar and across the ASEAN region. For the past 30 years, she has worked with fellow Burmese democracy activists as well as with ethnic women and youth from conflict-affected areas in Myanmar, including Kachin, Karen, Lahu and Rohingya. In 2008, Ms. Ohmar won the Anna Lindh Prize, awarded annually to a woman or young person with "the courage to fight indifference, prejudice, oppression and injustices in order to promote a good life for all people in an environment marked by respect for human rights." The award citation stated, "Her courageous and visionary work is a source of inspiration for all those engaged in the struggle for human rights and for a life of dignity." She also won the 2008 Vital Voices Global Leadership Award for Human Rights, which she shared with Shan Women's Action Network activist Charm Tong. US First Lady Laura Bush, the award's presenter, described Khin Ohmar as "one of the strongest voices against Burma's violent regime."

Ambassador Dr Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger

Prior to her appointment to Geneva, from 2007 to 2017, Ms. Tichy-Fisslberger served as Director General for Legal and Consular Affairs at the Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs. Ambassador Tichy-Fisslberger joined the Austrian diplomatic service in 1988 and has a long record of working in various areas of European affairs. Before joining the Austrian diplomatic service, she has worked for the European Commission in Brussels. Foreign postings included Dublin, London and a long spell in Brussels. Ambassador Tichy-Fisslberger has been the first Austrian National Coordinator on Combatting Human Trafficking as well as President of the Austrian Task Force on Combatting Human Trafficking since 2009. Since 2002 she has been a lecturer at the University of Vienna and from 2006 onwards also at the Diplomatic Academy, Vienna.