Human Rights Careers: Human Rights Centre Employability Panel

This is a fantastic opportunity to meet and learn from four experienced human rights defenders. All members of the panel are Essex human rights alumni or have worked at Essex and we are delighted and honoured to welcome them back to the University – and they are really looking forward to meeting you. 

There will be plenty of time for questions at the end of the panel.

Speakers

• Meghna Abraham “Working in the NGO Sector”
• Sandra Liebenberg “Human Rights Law Making and Interpretation in South Africa, at the UN and with Civil Society”
• Steven Malby “Working in Government”
• Matthew Gillett “Working at International Criminal Courts”
• Chair: Antonio Coco
  
   

Bios

Meghna Abraham is an international human rights lawyer and expert on economic, social and cultural rights who has led campaigns, investigations, and policy development to reform unjust economic policies and models. She was formerly the Executive Director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR). Prior to joining CESR, she worked at Amnesty International, including as the Director of Global Issues, Head of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and Senior Researcher on Corporate Crimes. Meghna also worked at the Natural Resources Governance Institute, International Service for Human Rights, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, World Organisation Against Torture, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, and Centre for Child and the Law at the National Law School. She has been an expert consultant for various NGOs and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights providing them with strategic or legal and policy advice. Meghna is the Chair of the Board of the Natural Resource Charter Limited, a member of the Advisory Council of the Bonavero Institute for Human Rights, and a Fellow of the Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre. She is a qualified Indian lawyer who holds a BA LLB (Hons) degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, and BCL and MPhil in Law degrees from the University of Oxford.

Dr Matthew Gillett is a Senior Lecturer at Essex Law School and Human Rights Centre. He is an academic and generalist international lawyer with extensive experience before the international courts. In 2022, he was appointed as a United Nations Special Mandate Holder (the Expert from the Western Europe and Others Group in the Human Rights Council's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention). He is currently the Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group. For almost 15 years, he worked in international organisations in The Hague (particularly the International Criminal Court ("ICC") and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ("ICTY")), primarily as a Prosecution Trial Attorney and Appeals Counsel. He has also conducted investigations in various conflict zones, including as a Human Rights Officer with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan ("UNAMA"). Matthew has an LL.B University of Otago; B.A. (political science) University of Otago; LL.M University of Michigan–Ann Arbor; PhD Leiden University,

Professor Sandra Liebenberg is a Distinguished Professor and H.F. Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law at the University of Stellenbosch Law Faculty, South Africa and a leading international scholar in her field of speciality, socio-economic rights.  She previously served as Chair of the Legal Technical Committee advising the South African Constitutional Assembly on the drafting of the Bill of Rights in the post-apartheid 1996 Constitution. She is a former Member and Vice-Chair of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Since 2021, she has chaired the Drafting Group of the Maastricht project on the Human Rights of Future Generations. Sandra has a  BA LLB degree LLB (University of Cape Town) LLM in International Human Rights Law (University of Essex) and LLD (Witwatersrand University).

Dr Steven Malby is currently Deputy Head of the Human Rights Department in the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, having joined the UK civil service in 2019 following almost fifteen years in international organisations, including as Head of the Office of Civil and Criminal Justice Reform at the Commonwealth Secretariat, at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna, and with UNICEF in Palestine and the Western Balkans. He qualified as a Solicitor in England and Wales and completed the Essex LLM in international human rights law, as well as a PhD in international human rights law at the University of Göttingen, Germany. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Human Rights Centre.

How to register

Essex Students can also join us on Zoom.