Human Rights Careers: Human Rights Centre Employability Panel

Dr MICHAEL WIENER, Human Rights Officer, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights  
Dr. Michael Wiener (PhD and LLM) has been working since 2006 at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, including for five years supporting the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief and now working in the Rule of Law, Equality and Non-discrimination Branch. He was also part of the core team organizing the expert workshops that led to the adoption of the Rabat Plan of Action on the prohibition of advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence. Since 2017, he has been working on the design and implementation of the Beirut Declaration and its 18 commitments on “Faith for Rights”.  

In 2019, he and the co-authors Heiner Bielefeldt and Nazila Ghanea were awarded with the Premio Alberigo Senior Book Award for their international law commentary on Freedom of Religion or Belief (Oxford University Press, 2016). Furthermore, he and Heiner Bielefeldt wrote the book Religious Freedom Under Scrutiny (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), which has been translated also in Bahasa Indonesia and German. In addition, he co-authored with Ibrahim Salama the book Reconciling Religion and Human Rights: Faith in Multilateralism (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022). He has been a Visiting Fellow of Kellogg College at the University of Oxford since 2011. During his UN sabbatical leave in summer 2022, he was also Senior Fellow in Residence at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. The outcome of his sabbatical research is the book A Missing Piece for Peace, edited together with David Fernández Puyana (University for Peace, 2022).

NARMEEN MOHAMMED, Human Rights Officer, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Section, Development and Economic and Social Issues Branch
Narmeen Mohammed is an international human rights lawyer with a focus on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ESCR) and International Humanitarian Law in conflict and post-conflict settings. She holds an LLM in ESCR from the University of Essex (2018), a Bachelor of Law from Cairo University (2011), and a Higher Diploma in Human Rights from the University of Khartoum (2013). She has worked with key UN and international organizations, including the the UN African Union Hybrid Mission in Darfur (2015) and OHCHR-Tunisia office (2018). Narmeen played a pivotal role in establishing the ESCR and Leaving No One Behind section at OHCHR-Sudan in 2020. She also contributed to the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen, working as a human rights investigator in 2021. From 2021 to 2023, she served as a Human Rights Investigator for the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, East Jerusalem, and Israel. Currently, Narmeen works in the Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights section at the UN Human Rights Office, continuing her human rights work. 

MICHELLE OLIEL, Executive Director, Stahili Foundation; Human Rights Adviser, Lori E. Talsky Center for Human Rights of Women and Children
Michelle is a Canadian human rights lawyer based in The Hague. She is a children’s rights advocate and educator with experience working with the United Nations and in both the government and private sector. Michelle’s expertise includes de-institutionalisation, children in armed conflict and sexual and gender-based violence. She was named a recipient of the 2016 Odyssey Award at the University of Windsor (Canada) and nominated for the Law Society of Upper Canada’s 2016 Human Rights Award for her work promoting children’s rights.

Michelle is the Executive Director of the Stahili Foundation, a non-governmental organisation that works to change care systems, end child trafficking to orphanages, and reintegrate children into families in Kenya. Michelle has experience serving in a number of international organizations. She served as a Legal Officer at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons where she worked on issues relating to disarmament in the Syrian Arab Republic. Her previous experience includes working for the Trial and Appeals Chambers of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She was a Trial Attorney on the Dominic Ongwen defense team before the International Criminal Court and is a certified Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes investigator.

Michelle holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science from York University (Canada), a Juris Doctor from the University of Windsor (Canada), and an LL.M. in public international law from Utrecht University.