The Gender Justice Practitioner Hub is proud to be supported by a fantastic advisory board. Their guidance and input is critical in ensuring the work of the GJP Hub remains inclusive, impactful, and aligned with current gender issues.
Michelle Jarvis has worked in the international criminal justice field for 22 years and is presently the Deputy Head of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (Syria) (IIIM), having taken up the post in December 2017. Prior to that she was the Deputy to the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT), where she had oversight of legal issues across the Office of the Prosecutor. She acted as counsel in a series of cases before the ICTY and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda setting significant international criminal law precedents.
Michelle has worked extensively to bring visibility to the experiences of marginalized groups during accountability processes and to strengthen legal responses, including initiating the IIIM’s proactive thematic strategies on a victim/survivor-centred approach, gender, children/youth and broader justice objectives to promote inclusive justice for Syria. She has co-authored two books and numerous articles on the subject of gender and armed conflict and she initiated and was the inaugural Coordinator of the Prosecuting Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Network, set up within the International Association of Prosecutors. Michelle has contributed to capacity building efforts to address mass atrocity in (post) conflict zones around the world, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan, Colombia, Cambodia and Syria. She is also an Advisory Board member of the Center for Climate Crime Analysis and a member of the high-level Advisory Group for the Anchoring Accountability for Mass Atrocities project by the Oxford Program on International Peace and Security. Prior to her work in international criminal law, Michelle was a litigator in Australia, where her roles included improving women’s access to justice. Michelle holds a Master’s degree in law from the University of Toronto as well as degrees in law and economics from the University of Adelaide.
Madeleine Rees is a British lawyer and Secretary-General of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), a role she has held since 2010. For most of her adult life, Madeleine has worked nationally and internationally to advance human rights, eliminate discrimination, and remove obstacles to justice. In addition to her work specialising in discrimination law with a major firm in the United Kingdom, she has also held various roles with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) – including as Head of the OHCHR in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she helped expose human rights abuses and the involvement of UN peacekeepers in sex trafficking As Secretary-General of WILPF, Madeleine is leading the organisation’s efforts to work through national and international legal frameworks to advance a future of human security and justice for all. Passionate about connecting women across borders to share experiences and organise for action, she is committed to building a true global movement for feminist peace. In 2014, Madeleine was awarded the OBE for her services to human rights, particularly women’s rights and international peace and security.
Susana SáCouto directs the War Crimes Research Office of the Washington College of Law, which promotes the development and enforcement of international criminal law and international humanitarian law, and the Summer Law Program in The Hague. She is also Professorial Lecturer-in-Residence at the Washington College of Law, where she teaches courses on international criminal law (ICL) and procedure, including an experiential learning course where students work on projects in partnership with tribunals and other organisations dedicated to accountability for atrocity crimes. Susana has advised and provided legal assistance on ICL issues to international, regional and domestic courts. Her background prior to joining WCL included extensive practical experience with organisations working on human rights, gender, refugee and international justice issues at both the domestic and international level, including Women Empowered Against Violence, Inc., the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Center for Human Rights Legal Action in Guatemala, and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. Susana has published widely on variety of ICL issues, including a book on Gender and International Criminal Law (Oxford University Press, 2022) co-edited with Valerie Oosterveld and Indira Rosenthal, which was recently awarded the Best Book prize from the Women in International Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law. She is co-founder of the Latin American Network for Gender-based Strategic Litigation, an Advisory Council Member of the International Association of Prosecutors’ Prosecuting Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Network, and former co-chair of the American Society for International Law’s Women in International Law Interest Group. She was awarded The Women’s Law Center 22nd Annual Dorothy Beatty Memorial Award for significant contributions to women’s rights and honoured as an inaugural member of the Gender Justice Legacy Wall by the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice for her contributions to the field of international gender justice.
Patricia V. Sellers an international criminal lawyer, is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford, where she teaches international criminal law and human rights law. She is a Practicing Professor at London School of Economics and a Senior Research Fellow at the Human Rights Center of the University of California, Berkeley. She was the Special Advisor on Gender to the former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Mrs Fatou Bensouda, from 2016-2021. She was the Legal Advisor for Gender, Acting Head of the Legal Advisory Section and a prosecutor at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) from 1994-2007 and the Legal Advisor for Gender at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) from 1995-1999. Patricia was a prosecutor on the trial teams of Akayesu, Furundzija, Kunarac, Nikolic and Oric. She has developed legal strategies that led to landmark decisions regarding sexual violence as constitutive conduct of war crimes, crimes against
humanity, genocide, torture and enslavement under international criminal law. Patricia has advised governments and civil society entities and lectured extensively on international criminal law. She has authored numerous articles, including, Missing in Action: The International Crime of the Slave Trade, Wartime Female Slavery: Enslavement?, and, The International Crimes of Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Feminist Critique. She has testified as an expert witness before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the cases of J. v. Peru, Favela Nova Brasilia v. Brazil, Albarracín v. Ecuador and Lima and Others v. Colombia.
Patricia is the recipient of the prestigious Prominent Women in International Law Award by the American Society of International Law. She holds an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the City University of New York, as well as an Honorary Fellow for Lifetime Achievement from the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania, her alma mater.