Staff

Mr Robert Archer (United Kingdom) – Executive Director
Email
Phone : +41 (0) 22 775 33 08
Before coming to the Council, Robert Archer was Senior Policy Adviser at Christian Aid where he worked on aid policy, parliamentary advocacy, and development policy issues in Africa and the Caribbean. Prior to that he was Desk Officer of the Asia Programme at the Catholic Institute for International Relations (now Progressio). Robert has taught and done research in Madagascar, and is the author of books on Madagascar and South Africa. He has degrees in philosophy and literature from Cambridge University and in African Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (London).

Mr Patrick Cattan (France) – Finance and Administration Officer
Staff and colleagues at the International Council mourn the loss of Patrick Cattan who died on 14 September 2008, leaving his wife Patricia and sons Christian and Anthony.

An experienced accountant, Patrick worked for both Digital Equipment Corporation and Motorola, and for a Geneva-based NGO working in the Caucasus Region and Central Asia before he joined the Council at the beginning of 2005. In the short time that he was with us, he developed the Council’s reporting system and proved a kind and conscientious colleague.

Ms Axelle Devun (France) – Communications Assistant
Email
Phone: +41 (0) 22 775 33 21
Before joining the Council, Axelle Devun worked in communication and promotion at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, particularly in the fields of web editing and marketing strategy. Prior to that, she worked for the Sphere Project on the promotion of materials and trainings. Previously, she developed activities, organised events, created and produced communications tools in a think tank, a web agency as well as a biotechnologies research & development company. She graduated in Marketing and Management from the IDRAC Business School, Lyon and has a Master’s degree in Media and Communication from Paul Cézanne University, Aix en Provence.

Ms Fairouz El Tom (Sudan & Switzerland) – Research and Publications Officer
Email
Phone: +41 (0) 22 775 33 00
Before joining the Council Fairouz El Tom was a Consultant at the Hague Appeal for Peace in New York. Prior to that she was an Education Observation Officer with UNICEF in Iraq. Fairouz also worked as Programme Assistant at Family Care International, New York. She has a Master’s degree in international educational development from Columbia University, New York.

Ms Mariette Grange (France) – External Relations Coordinator
Email
Phone: +41 (0) 22 775 33 06
Prior to joining the Council, Mariette Grange directed the Geneva Office of Human Rights Watch during the establishment of UN Human Rights Council. Prior to that, she worked for the International Catholic Migration Commission, designing and implementing an international programme for a rights-based approach to refugee, migration and internal displacement issues. Between 1993 and 2000, she worked with the World Council of Churches, on refugee and migration issues, children and adolescents protagonism, the anti-landmine campaign and finally as representative to the UN, also in charge of communications for the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs. In the late eighties and early nineties, she helped establish and develop the Amnesty International UN Office in Geneva. Mariette holds a Master’s degree in translation studies from the Institut Supérieur de Traducteurs et Interprètes, Brussels.

Mr Stephen Humphreys (Ireland) – Research Director
Email
Phone: +41 (0) 22 775 33 23
Prior to joining the Council, Stephen Humphreys was Senior Officer, Communications, responsible for publications and communications at the Open Society Justice Initiative, an operational human rights program of the Open Society Institute (OSI) in New York. Before that, he oversaw a project monitoring minority rights in ten Eastern European countries for OSI’s EU Monitoring and Advocacy Programme (EUMAP), based in Budapest, Hungary. Between 1997 and 1999 he worked with ENDA Tiers Monde’s Programme Energie, in Dakar, Senegal, researching and publishing on climate change and development. In the mid-1990s, he lectured in English literature at Budapest’s ELTE University. Stephen has a Master’s in international law from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, and is currently completing a Ph.D. in international law at the University of Cambridge.

Ms Sabrina Lambat (Switzerland) – Office Administrator
Email
Phone: +41 (0) 22 775 33 09
Sabrina Lambat’s previous work experience was mainly administrative and customer oriented in different sectors, such as governmental, telecommunications, brokerage and insurances, as well as industrial, construction and mining manufacturing. She has a Masters degree in International Studies from the IUHEI, University of Geneva and a DEA (Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies) in Development Studies from the IUED, University of Geneva.

Mr Vijay Kumar Nagaraj (India) – Research Director
Email
Phone: +41 (0) 22 775 33 02
Prior to joining the Council Vijay Kumar Nagaraj was an Assistant Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, India (2005-2007). Between 2000 and 2003, he served as Director of Amnesty International’s section in India. He has also worked as a full time political activist with Mazdoor Kisan Shakthi Sangathan (MKSS), a social movement organisation working with the rural poor in Rajasthan (between 1996-1998 and 2003-2005), Oxfam (India) Society (1998-1999) and also as a Consultant with the World Commission on Dams and the National Law School of India University.

Ms Elisabeth Nyffenegger (Switzerland) – Programme Administrator
Email
Phone: +41 (0) 22 775 33 05
Elisabeth Nyffenegger joined the Council in September 2007. Previously, she worked for many years at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as a delegate, before supporting the office of the Geneva Foundation to Protect Health in War and working as a Programme and Communication Officer at the Graduate Institute for Development Studies.

Ms Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona (Chile) – Reseach Director
Email
Phone: +41 (0) 22 775 33 07
Magdalena was appointed as Independent Expert on the question of human rights and extreme poverty by the United Nations Human Rights Council on 26 of March 2008. She was Co-Director of the Department of International Law and Human Rights of the United Nations affiliated University for Peace in Costa Rica prior to joining the Council. She has lectured at several universities in Latin America and worked at the Division of International Affairs of the University of Valparaíso, Chile. She has provided technical assistance and training on human rights to NGOs, IGOs and governments. Magdalena also worked as a researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, staff attorney at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, consultant to the Department of International Protection of UNHCR and more recently for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Colombia. She holds a Ph.D. in international law from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and an LL.M in human rights law from University of Essex, the United Kingdom.

Mr Richard Carver (United Kingdom) – Consultant Project Manager
Email
Richard Carver has more than 20 years’ experience of human rights work, holding research and management posts with responsibility for Africa at Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and ARTICLE 19. Since 1998, he has been the Director of Oxford Media Research, a small consultancy specializing in media rights in transitional democracies. He has written and taught courses in a variety of human rights subjects, and has published widely on issues such as national human rights institutions, freedom of information, media and elections, refugees, transitional justice and economic and social rights.

Ms Elizabeth Griffin (United Kingdom) – Consultant Project Manager
Email
Elizabeth Griffin is Director of the Human Rights Centre and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University for Peace. Prior to joining the University for Peace Elizabeth worked as a Lecturer in International Human Rights Law at the University of Essex. She has extensive experience as an academic and human rights practitioner investigating and reporting on human rights violations. She has worked for the United Nations (initially at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and then with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo), and as a Researcher for Amnesty International in Afghanistan and Kosovo. She holds an LL.M from the Universtiy of Essex.

Ms Cecilia Jimenez (Philippines) – Consultant Project Manager
Email
Cecilia Jimenez is a human rights lawyer and has been working as an independent consultant based in Geneva since 2002. Prior to this, she worked with the Association for the Prevention of Torture in Geneva and the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates.

Mr Scott Jerbi (United States) – Senior Adviser, Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI)
Email
Phone: +41 (0) 22 755 21 25
Since September 2002, Scott Jerbi has been working out of the Council’s Secretariat in Versoix. He is Senior Adviser of Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative, led by Mary Robinson, to whom he reports. Scott worked previously in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), where he was a speechwriter and the focal point for the development of OHCHR’s policies and activities relating to the private sector. Before joining the UN, Scott worked with the Amherst Wilder Foundation, a non-profit health and human services organisation serving low-income individuals and families in the central neighbourhoods and communities of Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA.