Staff Profiles
David Cohen, Director, Asian International Justice Initiative
Professor David Cohen is Professor of Rhetoric and Classics at UC Berkeley, and the former Professor of Law and Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He has monitored and reported extensively on the East Timor trials before the Special Panels for Serious Crimes in Dili and the Ad Hoc Human Rights Court in Jakarta. He currently directs a trial monitoring project at the special court for Sierra Leone and an international project on the WWII war crimes trials in Asia, the Pacific, and Europe. He is also writing books on a comparative study of international criminal hybrid tribunals in East Timor, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, and Kosovo and on war crimes from WWII to today.
Michelle Staggs Kelsall, Deputy Director, Asian International Justice Initiative
Michelle Staggs Kelsall is an Australian lawyer with a Masters in Public International Law/Human Rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science. As Deputy Director of the East-West Center's Asian International Justice Initiative, she is working closely with Professor Cohen to foster the Initiative’s current programs and develop future projects and partnerships in the region. As well as co-directing Summer Institute 2009, she is overseeing the Initiative’s regional trial monitoring and outreach programs at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia from her base in Phnom Penh. Based on the strength of her Masters research on the topic, Ms Staggs Kelsall was invited to attend an experts’ panel at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the legacy of internationalized tribunals in 2006. Her co-authored article on sexual violence victims was selected by Judge Navanethem Pillay for publication in the International Journal of Transitional Justice’s Special Issue on Gender in 2007. Her current research interests include the legacy of internationalized tribunals, gender and human rights, and human rights in Southeast Asia.
Penelope Van Tuyl is an American lawyer, currently serving as a Program Officer for the War Crimes Studies Center at Berkeley, which co-sponsors the Asian International Justice Initiative. Penelope received her JD from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and has worked closely with Professor David Cohen since 2006 on projects in Southeast Asia and West Africa. As Program Officer, Penelope oversees the WCSC's tribunal monitoring program at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and is working to assess the feasibility of expanding the Center's international tribunal monitoring efforts to other, more recently constituted international courts. She recently published a report on the investigations section of the Office of the Prosecutor at the Special Court (Effective, Efficient and Fair?: An Inquiry into the Investigative Practices of the Office of the Prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone), and continues to conduct independent research concerning institutional accountability mechanisms and due process of law in international tribunals.
As part of the WCSC's collaborative sponsorship of the AIJI, Ms. Van Tuyl assists with coordination and planning for the annual Summer Institute. She is happy to respond to your inquiries regarding the application process (including required materials and candidate review status).
