Who we are
REDRESS operates from offices in London and The Hague, and has a dedicated team of lawyers, advocates, and program staff who work on our projects, campaigns, events, communications and administration. The work of our staff is supported by our Board of Trustees, our Patrons, and a Legal Advisory Council.
Julie Bardeche
Legal Officer
Julie joined REDRESS in 2018 as a Legal Officer. Prior to REDRESS, she worked as a Legal Officer for the International Co-Investigating Judge at UNAKRT for five years. She is an attorney at the French Bar and has an LLM in Human Rights, Conflict and Justice at SOAS, and a master’s degree in Public International Law at Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas.
Nora Bendžius-Drennan
Fundraising Assistant
Nora joined REDRESS in 2016 as a Fundraising Assistant. She completed her BA in International Relations at the University of Exeter and has a master’s degree in Understanding and Securing Human Rights at the School of Advanced Study (University of London). She has undertaken various internships in the human rights and diplomatic fields, including with Minority Rights Group (MRG) in London, the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS) in Tbilisi, the Lithuanian Embassy in Paris, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania in Vilnius.
Sheilagh Cardosa
Head of Finance
Sheilagh joined REDRESS in January 2017 as Head of Finance. For the past twenty years she has worked in various charities, specializing in violence against women and girls. She was the Finance Manager for Eaves for twelve years, where she oversaw the many changes and challenges in the sector.
Chris Esdaile
Legal Advisor
Chris joined REDRESS in 2017, as a Legal Advisor. Chris spent several periods working in South Africa on human rights issues in the period before the end of apartheid. Having qualified as a solicitor in 1993, he worked in Birmingham undertaking housing litigation for vulnerable tenantsFrom 2004-2009 he worked as legal advisor at a centre for abused women in northern Chile, later assuming the role of Director. Chris has a LLM in International Human Rights Law at Queen Mary, University of London. From 2011-2017, Chris worked at Leigh Day, Solicitors, using legal action in England to hold large UK companies to account for harming people in other countries, and latterly working on some of the claims resulting from alleged mistreatment by British forces during the Iraq conflict.
Follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisEsdaile
Josie Fathers
Advocacy Officer
Josie joined REDRESS as an Advocacy Officer in 2017.She has extensive experience working on human rights issues in the Middle East, particularly with regards to the Gulf States. She has also undertaken various internships in the fields of human rights and peace and security. She completed her BA at the University of Leicester before pursuing a master’s degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Follow Josie on Twitter @JosieFathers
Charlie Loudon
International Legal Adviser
Charlie represents REDRESS and its clients in cases before international courts and tribunals, including the African human rights bodies, the European Court of Human Rights and the UN treaty bodies. He also co-ordinates REDRESS’s work at the UN on strengthening international rules against torture. Charlie is a UK-qualified solicitor advocate. He practised for six years at an international law firm, where he acted in disputes against foreign States. He previously spent time at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Ghana Center for Democratic Development. Charlie studied Law at Oxford (BA) and International Law and African Politics at the London School of Oriental and African Studies (MA).
Follow Charlie on Twitter @CharlieLoudon
Letizia Paoloni
Operations Manager
Letizia is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the CUNY Graduate School in New York, where she obtained her master’s degree in Political Science. Prior to joining REDRESS, Letizia was a research associate at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies in New York, where she organised and coordinated the RBI UN Seminar Series, and conducted research on UN operations, human rights, globalisation and development. As project manager of the Ralph Bunche Centenary Celebration Secretariat, she worked closely with over 90 worldwide participating organisations to organise and coordinate the centenary’s events such as conferences, lectures, exhibits, event openings, educational outreach programmes and TV shows.
Kanimoly Primson
Finance Assistant
Kanimoly Primson joined REDRESS team in August 2017 as Finance Assistant. She has 15 years of experience working in the UK voluntary sector. She has worked with different communities, especially with ethnic minority groups and helped in many refugee settlement projects in the UK. She has also worked in Haringey CVS organisation which supported various small charitable organisations in North London.
Eva Sanchis
Head of Communications
Eva joined REDRESS in 2011. She is a former Johns Hopkins University’s International Reporting Project fellow and a winner of the Guillermo Martínez-Márquez award for Latin American Reporting. She was the Metro and National News editor of El Diario-La Prensa, New York’s largest Spanish-language newspaper. She previously worked as its senior political and investigative reporter, and worked on several award-winning projects. She has also been a contributor to the Financial Times Magazine and BBC Mundo. She has a M.A. in Journalism and Latin American studies from New York University, where she was an adjunct professor.
Rupert Skilbeck
Director
Rupert Skilbeck is a barrister who specialises in human rights law and international criminal law, and has directed strategic litigation around the world. Before joining REDRESS on 1 February 2018, Rupert was the Litigation Director at the Open Society Justice Initiative, where he oversaw human rights litigation in more than 100 cases including torture, deaths in custody, discrimination, fair trial rights, corruption, national security, and international criminal law.
Prior to this he worked with international and hybrid criminal tribunals in Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Sierra Leone. In 2006 he was appointed by the United Nations as the Principal Defender for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. He was also the director of Odsjek Krivicne Odbrane, the criminal defence section of the State Court in Sarajevo, and the defence advisor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
From 1995 to 2004 he practiced primarily at the criminal bar in London and on the Midland circuit.
Follow Rupert on Twitter @RupertSkilbeck
Lorraine Smith van Lin
Post-Conflict Justice Adviser
Lorraine joined REDRESS in 2017 as the post-conflict justice adviser based in The Hague office. Prior to joining REDRESS, Lorraine worked as the Director of the International Bar Association’s International Criminal Court Programme and thereafter as a consultant specializing in international criminal justice and human rights. She has also taught international criminal law at The Hague University in the Netherlands. A national of Jamaica, Lorraine worked for several years as a Prosecutor and Resident Magistrate in Jamaica and was appointed to the Justice Reform Taskforce responsible for the review of the Jamaican justice system.
Lorraine has a Bachelor of Laws from the University of the West Indies and an LLM in International Human Rights Law from Essex University, UK.
Follow Lorraine Smith van Lin on Twitter on @SmithvanLin
Alejandra Vicente
Head of Law
Alejandra joined REDRESS on 1 November 2018 as Head of Law. She is a recognized expert in international human rights law, and a leading practitioner of strategic human rights litigation. Prior to joining REDRESS, Alejandra was the Legal Director of the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), where she oversaw their strategic litigation of human rights cases before the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights. In her 10 years at CEJIL she litigated ground-breaking cases, including the torture of journalists (Herzog v. Brazil), international responsibility for torture against non-state actors (Linda Loayza v. Venezuela), sexual and gender-based violence as torture (Gladys Espinosa v. Peru, Women of Atenco v. Mexico), and summary executions and forced disappearance (Palacio de Justicia v. Colombia).
Follow Alejandra Vicente on Twitter on @AVicente_Carr
Trustees
Paul Lomas – Chair
Paul is a solicitor of England and Wales, with Higher Rights of Audience. He is a member of the Competition Appeals Tribunal in London. He was the Vice-Chair of the fundraising Appeal Board for the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, which raised more than £1.5 million. He was formally a partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, where he was the head of the global commercial disputes team. His experience includes general litigation, including commercial transactions, mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, joint ventures, a wide range of regulatory litigation and defence work, financial services law, energy law, art law and particularly competition, cartel and EU law. He has advised many clients on strategic litigation, business model changing disputes and governance or ethics issues which affect their reputation. He has an MBA from INSEAD.
Michael Birnbaum QC
Michael has been a barrister for 40 years, specialising in serious crime, extradition, and judicial review. Since 2015 he has focused exclusively on appellate and advisory work. He has worked on cases involving miscarriages of justice for more than 30 years, and has done considerable pro bono work on international human rights cases. He has conducted trial observations in Nigeria (Ken Saro-Wiwa and others 1995), Sierra Leone (treason trials 1998), and Sri Lanka (inquest into the massacre of 17 aid workers in 2006 – 2007). For many years, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Bar Human Rights Committee
Professor Bill Bowring
Bill has been Professor of Law at Birkbeck College, University of London since September 2006, and a practising barrister. He founded and is Chair of the International Steering Committee of the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC). He has represented applicants before the ECHR in cases against Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Russia and Turkey, and regularly acts as expert for the Council of Europe on human and minority rights issues. He has written more than 80 publications on topics including international law and human rights.
Follow Bill on Twitter @BillBowring
Dr Sherman Carroll, MBE (Hon.)
Sherman was Head of Amnesty International’s campaigns, including the campaign for the abolition of torture (1974-1983), and co-founder of its medical programme. He was subsequently director of policy at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (now Freedom from Torture) until he retired in 2006. He is the founding editor of human rights publisher Readers International, in London and the USA.
Willa Maria Geertsema (Honorary Treasurer)
Willa is a consultant and a business owner. She was formally the Director of Finance and Administration at United World Colleges, a global educational movement founded in 1962, which today consists of 17 schools and colleges on four continents.
Leah Levin, OBE
Leah is a founder member of the Board of Trustees of REDRESS. She was formerly the Director of Justice at the British Section of the International Commission of Jurists from 1982-1992. She was a member of the Board of the Martin Ennals Foundation for 20 years, contributing to the creation of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. She has previously served on the boards of Anti-Slavery International, the United Nations Association, the International Journal of Human Rights, and International Alert.
Reverend Nicholas Mercer
Nicholas was the Rector of the Falkland Islands. He was formally a Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army, and taught at the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in San Remo. As the senior military legal adviser to the 1st Armoured Division during the Iraq war of 2003 he became an outspoken critic of the use of torture in Iraq, and was ultimately suspended by the Ministry of Defence. He was named Liberty Human Rights Lawyer of the Year 2011-2012 for his work for prisoners of war in Iraq.
Baroness Vivien Stern
Vivien Stern is a crossbench member of the House of Lords. She was formerly the Director of NACRO (1977-1996) and Secretary General of Penal Reform International (1989-2006). She is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for Prison Studies at King’s College London. She has written several books, including Creating Criminals: prisons and people in a market society and A Sin Against the Future: imprisonment in the world. She is a member of the advisory board of the OSF Human Rights Initiative.
Trustees (USA)
Professor Michael Bazyler, Chair
Stephanie Deckrosh
Professor Naomi Roht-Arriaza
Professor Dinah Shelton
Professor David Weissbrodt
Patrons
The Honourable Louise Arbour CC, GOQ
Professor Michael Bazyler
Rt Hon Ann Clwyd MP
Dato’ Param Cumaraswamy
Edward Datnow FRCS
Anthony Foulger
Dr Inge Genefke MD, D.M.Sc.h.c.
Dame Rosalyn Higgins DBE QC
The Rt Hon the Lord Judd
The Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC
Caroline Moorehead OBE, FRSL
Professor Manfred Nowak
The Rt Rev Lord Harries of Pentregarth
John Simpson CBE
Professor Theo van Boven
Professor David Weissbrodt
Dame Vivienne Westwood DBE, RDI
Founder and Honorary President
Keith Carmichael
Legal Advisory Council
Professor Michael Bazyler
Professor of Law, Chapman University School of Law, California.
Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC (Hon)
Solicitor specialising in human rights and founder and senior consultant at Bindmans LLP.
Joanna Glynn QC
Barrister at One Crown Office Row, Temple.
Professor David Harris CMG
Professor of Law, Nottingham University.
Professor Lorna McGregor
Professor of Law,University of Essex.
Professor Geraldine Van Bueren
Professor of Law, Queen Mary, University of London.
Professor David Weissbrodt
Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School.
REDRESS Nederland
REDRESS Nederland was formally established in The Hague in 2016. Our Hague-based organisation builds on REDRESS’ extensive experience of collaborating with the International Criminal Court and other international justice institutions on issues such as victim participation and reparation in criminal trials. Its work is supported by a Board of Trustees.
Trustees
Paul Lomas (Chair)
Former Partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Willa Maria Geertsema (Honorary Treasurer)
Director of Finance and Administration at United World Colleges (UWC)
Rianne Letschert (Secretary)
Rector Magnificus, Maastricht University
Contacts
REDRESS Nederland
Laan van Meerdervoort 70
5th floor; Rm 5.04
2517 AN, Den Haag, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 708 919 317 Email: [email protected]
Mandate and Operations
Stichting REDRESS Nederland was formally established on 7 September 2016. It is registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce with the registration number 66793319. Its RSIN number is 856699846.