Board members
The Council’s Executive Board directs the organisation and selects the themes of Council research. Board members are also members of the Council and are subject to the same terms of service. Board members serve in a private capacity, and do not represent their institutions.
Hina Jilani (Pakistan) – Chair
Hina Jilani is Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders. She is also Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. She is the founding member of several national, regional and international human rights organisations. In 1981 she established the first all-woman law firm in Pakistan, along with her sister, Asma Jahangir. In 1984 Hina and Asma set up AGHS Legal Aid, the first free legal aid centre in Pakistan. She has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the Millennium Peace Prize in 2001. She is specialised in human rights and constitutional rights litigation. Special areas of concern and activity in the field of human rights have been democratic development, the rights of women, minorities and children.
Fateh Azzam (Palestine)
Fateh Azzam is currently Regional Representative for OHCHR in the Middle East and Board Chair of the newly-established Arab Human Rights Fund (AHRF) in Beirut. Previously, he was Director of the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Programme at the American University in Cairo, worked as Programme Officer for Human Rights at the Cairo office of the Ford Foundation and was Director of the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq in Ramallah. Fateh received LLM in International Human Rights Law from Essex University, Colchester, United Kingdom in 1992.
Maggie Beirne (United Kingdom)
Maggie Beirne was Director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) until 2008. CAJ is an independent cross community NGO working to promote and protect civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights in Northern Ireland. CAJ worked hard to ensure that the peace agreement of 1998 incorporated strong provisions on human rights and equality, and was honored with the Council of Europe Human Rights Prize for its efforts in this regard. Maggie previously worked from 1971-1988 with the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, in the latter years having primary responsibility for campaigning and membership initiatives worldwide as Head of Campaign and Membership, which involved extensive human rights related international travel.
Imrana Jalal (Fiji)
Imrana Jalal is Human Rights Advisor at the Regional Rights Resources Team (RRRT), a Pacific regional human rights project based in Fiji. Imrana is a feminist lawyer, activist and opinion shaper in the Pacific Islands region. She is also a founding member of the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement and works locally, regionally and internationally as a human rights lawyer.
Emma Playfair (United Kingdom)
Emma Playfair is a British human rights lawyer by training. After practicing law in the City of London, she spent ten years working on human rights in the Middle East, initially as a researcher with the first Palestinian human rights organisation, Al-Haq, in the West Bank, and then establishing the human rights program in the Ford Foundation’s Cairo Office. In 1993 she became Executive Director of INTERIGHTS, the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights, in London, returning to Cairo nine years later to rejoin the Ford Foundation as Regional Representative for the Middle East and North Africa, a position she held until April 2008. She has written on human rights and humanitarian law, and on philanthropy. Amongst other publications, she edited International Law and the Administration of Occupied Territories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Marco Sassoli (Switzerland)
Marco Sassoli is Professor of International Law at the University of Geneva since 2004. He chairs the Boards of Geneva Call, an NGO engaging non-state armed groups to comply with humanitarian rules, and of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. From 2001 to 2003 he was Professor in the Legal Studies Department of the Political Science and Law Faculty at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), where he continues to serve as Associate Professor. He served as Clerk to the Swiss Federal Tribunal in Lausanne, and before that as Executive Secretary of the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva. For thirteen years, he worked at the International Committee of the Red Cross, in Geneva, the Middle East and the former Yugoslavia.
Wilder Tayler (Uruguay)
Wilder Tayler, a Uruguayan lawyer, is Deputy Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ). Between 1997 and 2007 he was Legal and Policy Director of Human Rights Watch. From 1995 to 1996, he was Programme Director of the Americas Region of Amnesty International. Between 1990 and 1995, he was Legal Advisor of Amnesty International with responsibility for the Americas and Asia regional programmes. From 1987 to 1990 he was Executive Director of the Institute for Legal and Social Studies (IELSUR) in Uruguay and before that, Legal Officer (1983-1987), co-ordinating the Institute’s defence of political prisoners.