Board
Geoff Budlender (South Africa)
Constitutional and Human Rights Lawyer
Geoff Budlender SC is an advocate (barrister) practicing in Cape Town, South Africa. He works mainly in the areas of constitutional law, human rights, administrative law, and other aspects of public law. In 1979 he was one of the founders of the Legal Resources Centre, South Africa's leading public interest law centre. From 1996-99 he served as Director-General of the Department of Land Affairs in the Mandela administration. He has litigated cases dealing with the death penalty, evictions, HIV/AIDS, housing rights, land rights, access to justice and the rights of women under customary law. He is an acting judge of the High Court of South Africa in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Manuel José Cepeda (Colombia)
Jurist, Universidad de los Andes
Manuel José Cepeda Espinosa served as a magistrate on the Constitutional Court of Colombia from 2001 to 2009 and was president of the Court from June 2005 to April 2006. From 1987 to 1990, he served as presidential advisor for legal affairs to Colombian President Virgilio Barco Vargas. From 1990 to 1991, he was advisor to Colombian President César Gaviria Trujillo for the Constituent Assembly of Colombia. From 1993 to 1995, he was Ambassador of Colombia to UNESCO and thereafter to the Helvetic Confederation (1995-1996). He served as Dean of the Universidad de los Andes Law School from 1996 to 2000. The author of several constitutional law books, he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Universidad de los Andes in 1986 and received his Master of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1987. In 1993, he received the Order of Boyacá from the President of Colombia.
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr (Japan)
Professor of International Affairs at the New School, New York
Prior to being a professor at the New School, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr was a research fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. From 1995 to 2004, she was director of UNDP's Human Development Reports. She has written and spoken widely on human rights as an essential aspect of development. She is founding editor of the Journal of Human Development. Prior to that, she held a number of positions in UNDP and the World Bank wtih management and technical responsibilities. She has a BA from the University of Cambridge and MAs from the University of Sussex and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She speaks Japanese, English and French.
Richard Goldstone (South Africa)
Co-chairperson of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association
Richard J. Goldstone was former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa (1994-2003) and former first chief prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (1994-1996). He is a member of the committee, chaired by Paul A. Volcker, appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to investigate allegations regarding the Iraq Oil for Food Program. In addition to being on the board of CESR, Judge Goldstone is on the boards of Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights and the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation. He has been chosen to receive the 2009 MacArthur Award for International Justice.
Chris Jochnick (United States)
Director, Private Sector Engagement, Oxfam America
Chris Jochnick is the director of private sector engagement for the international NGO, Oxfam America, and is a lecturer in business and human rights at Harvard Law School. He has worked for many years in the field of human rights and is co-founder and a director of the Ecuador-based Centro de Derechos Economicos y Sociales (CDES) and the co-founder of the Center for Economic and Social Rights. He also spent five years in the private sector as an attorney for the Wall Street law firm of Paul, Weiss Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. He was the editor in chief of the Harvard Human Rights Journal and a MacArthur Foundation research and writing fellow. He has authored many publications on human rights and development.
Irene Khan (Bangladesh)
Director General, International Development Law Organization
Before becoming Director General of the International Development Law Organization, Irene Khan was secretary general of Amnesty International from 2001 to 2009. Previously, she joined the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1980, working in a variety of positions, including senior executive officer to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, head of the UNHCR team in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia during the Kosovo crisis in 1999; she was appointed deputy director of International Protection in the same year. Khan studied law at the University of Manchester and Harvard Law School, specializing in public international law and human rights. She has received several awards and academic honours, including the City of Sydney Peace Prize in 2006. She is author of the 2009 book, "The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights."
Elizabeth McCormack (United States)
Adviser, Rockefeller Family & Associates
Elizabeth J. McCormack is a board member of the Juilliard School, Hamilton College, the Asian Culture Council and the Atlantic Philanthropies. She received a BA degree from Manhattanville College and a PhD from Fordham University. From 1966 to 1974 she was president of Manhattanville College. At the present time she is an adviser to members of the Rockefeller family.
Carin Norberg (Sweden)
Director, Nordic Africa Institute
Carin Norberg is a board member of the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies and former director of the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden. From 2002-2005, she was executive director and program manager for global programs at the secretariat of Transparency International, in Berlin. Since 1970, she has held various positions with the Swedish International Development Agency, including director, department for East and West Africa, director, department for humanitarian assistance and co-operation with NGOs, and director, department for democracy and social development. From 1984-87, she was advisor to the UN Commissioner for Namibia at the United Nations headquarters in New York. She holds a degree in political science and economics from Uppsala University.
Alicia Ely Yamin (United States)
Chairperson
Director of the Program on the Health Rights of Women and Children at
the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights; Lecturer, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University.
Alicia Ely Yamin, JD MPH, is Director of the Program on the Health Rights of Women and Children at the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. She is also adjunct lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health and associated senior researcher at the Christian Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway. From 2007 to 2011, Yamin was Joseph H. Flom Fellow on Global Health and Human Rights at Harvard Law School. Previously, Yamin was director of research and investigations at Physicians for Human Rights. Yamin has conducted human rights documentation and advocacy with both international and local Latin American organizations for 20 years. In addition to being chairperson of the Center for Economic and Social Rights, she serves on the advisory boards of the International Initiative on Maternal Mortality and Human Rights and the Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health, among others. Yamin is also on the editorial review boards of Human Rights Quarterly, Human Rights and the Global Economy, and the Revista Iberoamericana de Derechos Humanos.
Philip Alston (Australia)
Honorary board member
Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Philip Alston served as the chair of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1991-1998). He currently teaches at the New York University Law School. Alston has published extensively on economic, social and cultural rights. He has a LL.B (Hons.), B.Comm. and LL.M. from the University of Melbourne and an LL.M. and JSD from the University of California, Berkeley.
