Margaret Sekaggya is a Ugandan lawyer and human rights activist. From 2008 to 2014, Sekaggya was the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights defenders.
Margaret Sekaggya is a Ugandan lawyer and human rights activist. From 2008 to 2014, Sekaggya was the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights defenders.
Sekaggya was born in Kampala on 23 October 1949. In 1970, she began studying at Makerere University pursuing a bachelor of laws degree. In 1990, she attained a master of laws degree from the University of Zambia. She has worked with the governments of Uganda, Zambia, and the United Nations. From 1996 to 2009, she as the chairperson for the Uganda Human Rights Commission. In 1995, she had been appointed a judge of the High Court of Uganda. During this time, she was selected to oversee the Uganda Interim Electoral Commission. She also participated in the promulgation of the 4th Constitution of Uganda in 1995. During much of the 80s, she was based at the United Nations Institute for Namibia, readying Namibia's institutions for transition into independence. From 1978 to 1982, she was a magistrate based in Lusaka. [1] [2] From 2008 to 2014, Sekaggya was the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights defenders. [3]
Special rapporteur is the title given to independent human rights experts whose expertise is called upon by the United Nations (UN) to report or advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective.
Human rights in Uganda have trended for the past decades towards increasing harassment of the opposition, cracking down on NGOs which work on election and term limits, corruption, land rights, environmental issues, womens, children and gay rights. In 2012, the Relief Web sponsored Humanitarian Profile – 2012 said Uganda made considerable developments Since at least 2013 the Freedom in the World report by Freedom House has identified Uganda as a country considered to be "Not Free".There are several areas of concern when it comes to human rights in Uganda, and the "Not Free" classification is due to both low political rights and civil liberties rankings.
Juan E. Méndez is an Argentine lawyer, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and a human rights activist known for his work on behalf of political prisoners.
A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing campaigners, participants in direct action, or just individuals acting alone. They can defend rights as part of their jobs or in a voluntary capacity. As a result of their activities, human rights defenders (HRDs) are often subjected to reprisals including smears, surveillance, harassment, false charges, arbitrary detention, restrictions on the right to freedom of association, physical attack, and even murder. In 2020, at least 331 HRDs were murdered in 25 countries. The international community and some national governments have attempted to respond to this violence through various protections, but violence against HRDs continues to rise. Women human rights defenders and environmental human rights defenders face greater repression and risks than human rights defenders working on other issues.
Christopher John Robert Dugard is a South African professor of international law. His main academic specializations are in Roman-Dutch law, public international law, jurisprudence, human rights, criminal procedure and international criminal law. He has served on the International Law Commission, the primary UN institution for the development of international law, and has been active in reporting on human-rights violations by Israel in the Palestinian territories.
United Nations Security Council resolution 935, adopted unanimously on 1 July 1994, after recalling all resolutions on Rwanda, particularly 918 (1994) and 925 (1994), the Council requested the Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to establish a Commission of Experts to investigate violations of international humanitarian law during the Rwandan genocide.
Naji Ali Hassan Fateel is a Bahraini human rights activist and member of the Board of Directors of the Bahraini human rights NGO Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR). Since 2007 he has been imprisoned, tortured and the target of death threats during the Bahraini uprising (2011–present). He has been the subject of urgent appeals by international human rights organisations and the United nations special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders.
Agnès Callamard is a French human rights activist who is the Secretary General of Amnesty International. She was previously the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, and the former Director of the Columbia University Global Freedom of Expression project.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran is a United Nations Special Rapporteur whose mandate is to monitor and investigate human rights violations in Iran. The current Special Rapporteur is Javaid Rehman. He is the sixth special rapporteur to Iran, following the tenures of Andrés Aguilar (1984–1986), Reynaldo Galindo Pohl (1986–1995), Maurice Copithorne (1995–2002), Ahmed Shaheed (2011–2016), and Asma Jilani Jahangir (2016–2018).
Rashida Manjoo is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Cape Town in Cape Town and a social activist involved in the eradication of violence against women and gender-based violence. Manjoo was the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women from June 2009 to July 2015.
Michel Forst is a French national actively involved in the defence of human rights. Former Secretary General of the French national human rights institution, he was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders from June 2014 to March 2020.
Women in law describes the role played by women in the legal profession and related occupations, which includes lawyers, paralegals, prosecutors, judges, legal scholars, law professors and law school deans.
Florence Ndagire is a female Ugandan lawyer, who works as a legal researcher and human rights lawyer at the United Nations (UN) based in Geneva, Switzerland. Ndagire, who is totally blind, also serves as the chairperson of the UN Women Regional Group, for Eastern and Southern Africa, comprising twelve countries. She is the first visually impaired person, male or female to qualify and receive licensure as a lawyer in Uganda.
Saleh al-Ashwan is a member of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, an organization that has advocated for the release of political prisoners and greater respect for human rights in Saudi Arabia and that was banned in March 2013. Saudi authorities arrested al-Ashwan in July 2012 for defending women's rights and held him without trial or access to lawyers for nearly four years, while confiscating his electronic devices. During his first two months of detention he was held incommunicado and Saudi activists allege that he was tortured, beaten, as well as stripped and suspended by his limbs from the ceiling of an interrogation room. In 2016 a Saudi court sentenced al-Ashwan to five years in prison and a five-year ban on travel abroad. He is currently held in al-Ha’ir prison south of Riyadh. Due to these abuses, he is considered to be a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
Women human rights defenders (WHRDs) are women who defend human rights, and defenders of all genders who defend the rights of women and rights related to gender and sexuality. Their work and the challenges they face have been recognized by a United Nations (UN) resolution in 2013, which calls for specific protection for women human rights defenders.
Catarina de Albuquerque is a Portuguese lawyer and human rights activist who served as the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation (2008–2014). After becoming Executive Chair of Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) in 2015, in September 2018 she was appointed SWA's Chief Executive Officer.
Reine Adélaïde Sophie Alapini-Gansou is a Beninese jurist who is a judge of the International Criminal Court since March 2018.
E. Tendayi Achiume is a Professor of Law and former Faculty Director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights at the University of California, Los Angeles. She served as the United Nations special rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance from her appointment in September 2017 until November 2022. She was the first woman appointed to this position since its creation in 1993.
Sheila B. Keetharuth is a Mauritius broadcaster and human rights activist who served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea. She is the Vice-President AAIL, She was awarded Madrid Bar Association Medal of Honor for her human rights work in African.
Clément Nyaletsossi Voule is a Togolese diplomat and jurist. Voule served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association from 2018 to 2024. Prior to this, Voule served as African Advocacy Director International Service for Human Rights (ISHR).
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