Advisory Council

Maggie Beirne worked at Amnesty International’s International Secretariat (1971 to 1988) on research and membership issues and subsequently as a member of the senior management team, responsible for worldwide campaigning and membership. Subsequently, Ms Beirne worked with the Committee on the Administration of Justice, a cross community non-governmental organisation working on human rights in Northern Ireland. She worked with CAJ, through conflict to peace-building, from the end of the 1980s until 2008 as a volunteer, then as Research & Policy Officer, and then as Director. Ms Beirne graduated from Balliol, Oxford University (BA Hons) and an MSSc in Irish Politics from Queens University, Belfast and is now Visiting Fellow at Bristol University’s Law School (Ireland).

Director of a Human Rights NGO in Djakarta and Indonesian representative to Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights in ASEAN until October 2015, Mr. Djamin is a longtime partner of the APT.

Within the more general field of public international law, my current research focuses on three areas. The first concerns the law of the sea, in particular the law relating to maritime boundary delimitation. This was the subject of my doctoral thesis and I have continued to research and write on this topic over the last 20 years. I am shortly to commence a new monograph on this topic. The second and third areas concern human rights, and in particular the freedom of religion or belief and torture and torture prevention. 

Since the publication of my book entitled Religious Liberty and International Law in Europe (1997, re-issued in January 2008) I have become intimately involved in many international processes concerning the freedom of religion or belief, at the UN, the EU, the Council of Europe and in particular at the Organization on Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) of whose Advisory Council on Freedom of Religion and Belief I have been a member since 2004. This involves me in a wide variety of activities, including the drafting of Guidelines on the teaching about religion or belief in public schools (the Toledo Guiding Principles, 2008). I am currently involved in re-writing the OSCE/Venice Commission’s Guidelines for Review of Legislation Pertaining to Religion or Belief. I have also recently written reports for the European Union on the relationship between the freedom of religion and the freedom of expression and for the Council of Europe a work entitled Manual on the Wearing of Religious Symbols in Public Areas.

Since the mid 1990s I have been closely involved in matters concerning the prevention of torture and co-authored a number of works on this topic, with Professor Rod Morgan, notably Preventing Torture (1998) and Combating Torture in Europe (2001). At that time I became a member of the Board of Management of the international NGO, the Association for the Prevention of Torture, and with them worked towards the adoption in 2002 of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture, as well as the Robben Island Guidelines on Torture Prevention in Africa. Following the entry into force of the Optional Protocol in 2006 I have be closely involved in two major research projects funded by the AHRC and based at Bristol looking into the practical functioning the National Preventive Mechanisms and at the implementation of the Robben Island Guidelines. Since 2009 these have been combined in the newly established Human Rights Implementation Centre, which I have directed in it first year of operation. I am currently involved in co-authoring a book on the Optional Protocol with colleagues at Bristol.

In 2009 I became a member of the United Nations human rights treaty body established under the Optional Protocol, the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture. As a member of that body I am able to participate in visits to places of detention in states party and play an active role in representing the Subcommittee in many processes and events in all parts of the world.

I also remain active in more general areas of international law and have just completed overseeing the production of the 3rd edition of International Law, a multi-authored textbook of which I am editor. I also continue in my role as an editor of the International and Comparative Law Quarterly, and as co-editor of the book series, Foundations of Public International Law, published by the Oxford University Press, for which I am planning to co-author a monograph on aspects of international dispute settlement.

APT former President (Switzerland).

Ms. Jeehan Mahmood, whose educational background and professional experience closely ties in with the psycho-social elements of protecting Human Rights, completed her Bachelor of Arts with triple majors in Sociology, Psychology and English Language. She has served as an integral part of the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives. She began working with the Commission in 2008 as a Media Officer and later became Director of the newly formed National Preventive Mechanism. Now serving as a Member of the Commission, she incorporates her experience and fervour in promoting and protecting human rights in the Maldives.

Born 1950 in Bad Aussee (Austria), 1973 conferral of doctorate (Dr. Iur.) University of Vienna, 1975 LL.M Columbia University (New York), since 1992 Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights (Vienna), 1993 - 2001 Member of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, 1996 - 2003 Judge at the Human Rights Chamber of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2004 - 2010 UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, 2000-2012 head of an independent human rights commission at the Austrian Ministry of Interior (under the Human Rights Advisory Board of the Ministry); since 2008 head of the interdisciplinary research platform “Human Rights in the European Context” (University of Vienna); Member of the Austrian Monitoring Body of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Vienna; since 2012 Member of the Management Board of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights in Vienna; since 2012 Scientific Director of the Vienna Master of Arts in Human Rights (University of Vienna); since 2012 Head of Visiting Commission of the Austrian Ombudsman Board; author of more than 500 publications in the fields of constitutional, administrative and international law with a focus on fundamental and human rights.

Professor of Human Rights and International law (Argentina). Since August 2015 UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers. Former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Chad and Guatemala.

Mr. Bacre Ndiaye currently serves as Director of the Division of Human Rights Council and Special Procedures Division at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.  Prior to his current assignment, he served from 1998 to 2006 as Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. He has participated in a wide range of field missions. From 1992 to 1998, he served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions.

A lawyer by profession, Mr. Ndiaye has worked extensively in the field of human rights and was a member of Amnesty international executive committee from 1985 to 1991.  In his capacity as Special Rapporteur, he has participated in missions to Yugoslavia (1992), including for the International Commission of investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity; Rwanda (1993) and in 1994 with the Special Rapporteur on Rwanda; Papua New Guinea (1995). He also prepared reports on missions to Peru (1994); Colombia (1996); Indonesia and Timor Leste and Burundi (1995); the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Sri Lanka and the United States (1997).

Mr. Ndiaye remained elected member of the Senegalese Bar Council for 16 years (1982 – 1998) and served as its Secretary General for eight years (1983 – 1991). During 1995, he was appointed member of the Truth and Justice Commission in Haiti and in 1994 he was awarded the Human Rights Prize of the International Service for Human Rights (Senegal).