Faculty of International Experts

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.

Jacinta DaCosta, Probational Judge, Court of Appeal, East Timor

Justice Jacinta DaCosta is a Probational Judge on the Court of Appeal in East Timor. She graduated from Gadjah Mada University Faculty of Law in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in1997. During 1998-99 she worked with an NGO, The Human Rights Foundation, as an assistant defense lawyer, and as a volunteer with the NGO, Communication Forum for East Timorese Women, as a counselor for victims. In early January 2000 she was appointed by the Transitional Administrator, Sergio Viera de Mello as a Probational Judge for the Dili District Court and on 20 of July 2000, the Transitional Administrator re-assigned her as a Probational Judge for the Court of Appeal. At the Court of Appeal she initially worked with two International Judges because at the time there was only one panel consisting of 3 Judges (one National and two Internationals). Later, in August 2004 the Court of Appeal got one more International Judge, so she now works with three International Judges. During UNTAET (United Nation Transitional Administration in East Timor) period she was also involved in other areas. In 2001 she was a Commissioner with Independent Electoral Commission that had responsibility for the Constituent Assembly Election in 2001and was composed of 3 international election experts (from Korea, Australia and India) and two East Timorese. She was also on the Selection Panel for the Constitutional Commission that selected the person who had responsibility to consult with the East Timorese people about The East Timorese Constitution in 2001.

Sidney Jones, Indonesia Expert, International Crisis Group

Sidney Jones and Crisis Group’s South East Asian analysts based in Jakarta prepare analytical reports on the sources of conflict and violence in the region, with a particular focus on Indonesia. She has examined separatist conflicts (Aceh and Papua, Mindanao); communal conflicts (Poso, Moluccas); and ethnic conflict (Kalimantan). Her team has also looked at Islamic radicalism, producing a series of reports on Jemaah Islamiyah and its operations in Indonesia and the Philippines. It also looks at issues of security sector reform and decentralisation in Indonesia. Sidney frequently briefs the media, international organisations, and government representatives on these issues.

Suzannah Linton, Director of LLM Programme (Human Rights), University of Hong Kong

Associate Professor Suzannah Linton is the Director of the LL.M Programme in Human Rights at the University of Hong Kong (see www.hku.hk/ccpl/human_rights/index.html), and also Deputy Director of the Centre for Comparative and Public Law.  She teaches Public International Law, International Criminal Law and International Humanitarian Law, International Human Rights Law and a course on Dealing with Legacies of Human Rights Violations.  In 2007-2008, she will also co-teach a new course on International Dispute Resolution.

Ms. Linton is qualified as a Solicitor in the United Kingdom, and joined the Faculty of Law in 2005 after many years of practice in international organisations around the world including with United Nations peacekeeping missions, the Mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe to Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as international courts and tribunals such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts in Switzerland.  She also served as a prosecutor for Serious Crimes before the Special Panel for Serious Crimes in East Timor and advised the East Timor CAVR (Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation) on International Law.   Her focus has been on accountability for gross violations of human rights and humanitarian law, and the rebuilding of war-torn nations through rule of law.  She has particular expertise on the Balkans, East Timor, Indonesia and Cambodia.

Ms. Linton has received numerous academic awards, scholarships and fellowships.  She is a member of international bodies such as the International Committee for Human Rights in Sarajevo, the International Legal Assistance Consortium in Sweden, the International Bar Association, the European, Asian and American Societies of International Law, as well as the International Law Association, whose committees on Reparation for Victims of War and Non State Actors she is part of.

Ms. Linton is listed among the world's top public international lawyers in the WHO'S WHO IN PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW, 2007, 1st Edition, edited by Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, CBE, QC.

She has published widely in leading international law journals.

Justice Liu Daqun – Appeals Chamber, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Judge Liu Daqun has been a permanent Judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia since 2000 and now sits in the appeals Chamber. Before joining the ICTY, he was ambassador to Jamaica and also permanent representative of the People’s Republic of China to the International Seabed Authority. From 1984 to 1993, Judge Liu was the director of the Private International Law Division, and of the Law of the Sea Division, in the Treaty and Law Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. From 1993 to 1998, Judge Liu held the position of the Deputy Director General and Legal Adviser in the same department. Judge Liu was also professor of International Law at the China University of Law and Political Science. He has represented China in various legal forums and negotiations and was deputy head and chief negotiator of the Chinese delegation to the Rome Conference on the establishment of the International Criminal Court.

Mr Carlos Medina, Secretary-General of the Working Group for an ASEAN
Human Rights Mechanism

Carlos P. Medina, Jr. is the Executive Director of the Ateneo Human Rights Center (AHRC), which is based at the School of Law of the Ateneo de Manila University.  AHRC is involved in efforts to set up law school-based human rights centers in the Philippines.  He is also the Secretary General of the non-governmental Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, a regional coalition of human rights advocates working for the establishment of an inter-governmental human rights system in Southeast Asia.  He teaches Constitutional Law and International Humanitarian Law at the Ateneo Law School, and International Relations and Public Dispute Resolution at the Ateneo School of Government.  He is also the Vice-Chairperson of the Department of International Law and Human Rights of the Philippine Judicial Academy of the Supreme Court, and previously served as defense counsel for detainees at the Manila City Jail.  Carlos is a graduate of the Ateneo Law School, the London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), and the Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University). 

Vitit Muntarbhorn is a Professor of Law at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.

Vitit Muntarbhorn is an eminent expert in human rights with more than 1000 publications and combines the qualities of a scholar, an educator, a policy-making adviser and a grass-root human rights activist. He has served in various capacities for the United Nations system. In 1990-1994, he was Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Professor Muntarbhorn was recently nominated Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Justice Motoo Noguchi, Supreme Court Chamber, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Justice Motoo Noguchi is a professor at UNAFEI (United Nations Asia and Far East Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders) in Tokyo, serving concurrently as senior attorney at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Legal Affairs Bureau. He started his career as public prosecutor at the Ministry of Justice in 1985 and has accumulated considerable experience in criminal investigations and trials. He also has long experience in the provision of legal technical assistance for developing countries in Asia including Cambodia, firstly as professor at the Research and Training Institute of the Ministry of Justice, then as counsel at the Asian Development Bank, and currently as professor at UNAFEI. He is a graduate of the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Law and was visiting scholar at University of Washington, Law School, USA from 1992-93. He currently serves as a judge on the Supreme Court Chamber at the ECCC.

Sriprapha Petcharamesree, Director, Office of Human Rights Studies and Social Development

Sriprapha Petcharamesree is a Member of the Thai Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism; Director, Office of Human Rights Studies and Social Development, Mahidol University; Professorial Lecturer of Political Science, Human Rights Studies Program, Mahidol University; Professorial Lecturer of Political Science, Southeast Asia Studies Program, Thammasat University; Member, Subcommittees on Human Rights Situation Assessment; Child Rights; and Administration of Justice and Legislation – Thai National Human Rights Commission.

Irene Santiago – Mindanao Commission on Women
Irene Santiago is the chair and chief executive officer of the Mindanao Commission on Women and co-founder of the Mothers for Peace Movement in the Philippines. She is a senior adviser to the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (PAPP) where she assists in policy and strategy formulation, specifically on demobilization, disarmament and reintegration. She is one of two women on the Philippine government panel negotiating peace with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). In this role, she has brought gender issues into the peace talks.

In 2005, she was a nominee of the 1,000Women for the Nobel Peace Prize. She has consulted on gender issues for the World Bank and numerous international institutions, organizations and governments. She served as the executive director of the NGO Forum on Women, which was organized in parallel with the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.

Theary Seng, Director of the Center for Social Development, Cambodia

Theary Seng is the Executive Director of the Center for Social Development (CSD), a local human rights organization based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia since June 1995.  CSD works in the areas of court monitoring, good governance, parliamentary and elections monitoring, and community dialogue and national reconciliation through its public forums.

Theary graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service (Washington, DC) with a Bachelor of Science in International Politics in 1995 and from the University of Michigan Law School with a Juris Doctor in 2000.  Theary is a member of the New York Bar Association and American Bar Association, and is awaiting membership to the Cambodian Bar Association.

Theary has written about her life in a book entitled Daughter of the Killing Fields, first published in London in September 2005.  She is also a founding member and vice-president of the Women’s Association of Small & Medium Businesses (WASMB), and a Board member of Silapak Khmer Amatak (Cambodian Living Arts), and one of three judges of the new, educational, The Apprentice-format reality TV series Youth Leadership Challenge (Sundays, TV5 1.30-2.30 p.m.) to instill youth and civic leadership among young Cambodian people

Rupert Skilbeck, Principal Defender, Defence Support Section, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Rupert Skilbeck practises in criminal law, human rights law and international criminal law. In June 2006 he was appointed by the United Nations as the Principal Defender for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), more commonly known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. From 2005 to 2006 he was the Director of Odsjek Krivicne Odbrane (OKO), the criminal defence section of the specialist war crimes chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. In 2004 he acted as the Defence Advisor to the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown. He acts as an expert for the Council of Europe on the European Convention on Human Rights, lecturing throughout Eastern Europe. He has also lectured on human rights law and war crimes law around the world for organisations such as the International Bar Association, the FCO, the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and the Bar Human Rights Committee. He was until recently a director of Amicus, a charity which assists lawyers working on death penalty cases in the USA. 

Eric Stover (Director, U.C. Berkeley Human Rights Center)

Eric Stover is Director of the Human Rights Center and Adjunct Professor of Public Health. He was the Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) until December 1995. Since 1993, he has severed on several medicolegal investigations as an "Expert on Mission" to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. In March and April 1995, he conducted a survey of mass graves throughout Rwanda for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. In June 1984, Mr. Stover testified for the prosecution at the trial of leaders of the military junta which ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983.

In the early 1990s, Stover and a British deminer, Rae McGrath, undertook research on the social and medical consequences of land mines in Cambodia and other developing countries. Stover is the author of numerous books, reports, and articles on medicine and human rights, includingThe Graves: Srebrenica and Vukovar (with photographer Gilles Peress), Witnesses from the Grave: The Stories Bones Tell (Little, Brown, Inc.), The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse, and the Health Professions (W.H. Freeman); Medicine Under Siege in the former Yugoslavia 1991 -1995 (Physicians for Human Rights); and Landmines: A Deadly Legacy (Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch). His articles and photographs have appeared in the Smithsonian, The New York Times, Science, The Washington Post,, New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, New Scientist and other professional journals. In 1992, he wrote and co-produced a NOVA-WGBH documentary on the search for the graves of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Bolivia.