Disability as a human rights issue
Lecurers and Experts
The Global Campus of Regional Master’s Programmes and Diplomas in Human Rights and Democratisation (Global Campus of Human Rights) is a unique network of more than a hundred universities around the world with the overall aim of educating human rights defenders committed to upholding the universal values of human rights and democracy.
Reflecting this international spirit and multidimensional approach, the course is taught by academics and experts drawn from all regions of the world and a cross-section of constituencies, enabling participants to benefit from rich and varied competences, experiences and knowledge.
The course has been developed under the leadership of the Human Rights Centre of the University of Pretoria, home of the LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa.
Frans Viljoen
Prof. Viljoen is currently the Director of the Centre for Human Rights, and Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria.
He has been the Director for Academic Programmes at the Centre for Human Rights, and notably of the Master's degree (LLM / MPhil) in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa. Prof. Viljoen is an internationally recognised scholar and researcher and the recipient of the Alexander Von Humboldt Research Fellowship and the Exceptional Achiever Award at the University of Pretoria, among others.
He is the author and co-author of several books on human rights and the law, and the editor of the African Human Rights Law Reports and the African Human Rights Law Journal. He holds the following degrees: LLD (Pretoria), LLM (Cambridge), MA and LLB (Pretoria).
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Sriprapha Petcharamesree
Dr. Petcharamesree is a full time faculty member at the Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies, Mahidol University, Thailand.
Her first formal contact with human rights works started when she served as a social worker at UNICEF’s Emergency Operations for Cambodian Refugees.
Since the 1990s she has been active in the human rights field among both the academic community and human rights advocates/activists at national, regional and international levels. She has been working closely with NGOs, grassroots people and some marginalized groups, ethnic minorities, migrant workers, asylum seekers, etc. Her recent works focuses, among others, on issues of citizenship, migration, statelessness, rights to development, and human rights in international relations and human rights in ASEAN.
HIn October 2009 Prof. Petcharamesree was appointed by the Thai government as the Thai Representative to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights in which she served until December 2012. She is Co-Chair of the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism advocating for an effective regional human rights system in ASEAN.
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Elizabeth Kamundia
Ms. Kamundia is a doctoral candidate at the University of Pretoria, writing her thesis on Article 12 of the CRPD.
Ms. Kamundia also works as a consultant on disability rights with Users and Survivors of Psychiatry – Kenya, and the Kenya Association of the Intellectually Handicapped.
She has held various legal researcher positions including with the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, Centre for Disability Law and Policy of the National University of Ireland, Galway; Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and the Committee of Experts on Constitutional Review (Kenya). Ms. Kamundia is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya.
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Serges Djoyou Kamga
Prof. Kamga is Associate Professor at the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa.
He holds an LLD from the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria.
His areas of interest include the African Renaissance, development and human rights, and disability rights and he has published on these topics. Prof. Kamga is also a co-editor of the African Disability Rights Yearbook.
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Ilze Grobbelaar-du Plessis
Dr. Grobbelaar-du Plessis is a senior lecturer and holds the degrees BIuris LLB LLM LLD from the University of Pretoria.
She lectures in the Department of Public Law in the Faculty of Law at the University of Pretoria since 2004.
Her main areas of interest are constitutional law, human rights and disability law. She is co-editor of the African Disability Rights Yearbook and co-edited Aspects of Disability Law in Africa (2011) with Prof TP van Reenen.
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Mariano Godachevich
Dr. Mariano Godachevich is a lawyer (University of Buenos Aires), university lecturer (Latin American Programme on Human Rights and Democratisation, University of San Martin) and author specialized in disability rights.
He has three decades of experience as representative of the disability rights movement in Argentina and Latin America.
Between 2001 and 2012 he coordinated a programme for labor inclusion for the visually impaired. He is an advisor of the National Programme for Persons with Disabilities in their Relationship with the Administration of Justice (ADAJUS) at the Ministry of Justice in Argentina.
He has been a consultant of the Inter-American Development Bank in the evaluation of labor insertion programmes. Since 2014 he is the Argentine civil society delegate and Vicepresident of the Committee for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (CEDDIS) of the Organization of American States (OAS).
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Eilionóir Flynn
Dr. Flynn is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Law and Deputy Director of the Centre for Disability Law and Policy (CDLP), National University of Ireland, Galway.
She is the Principal Investigator on a research projects in the fields of access to justice, active citizenship and disability (DISCIT), and legal capacity reform (PERSON).
In 2014 she became the youngest awardee of a European Research Council Starting Grant for the VOICES project on the lived experiences of those denied legal capacity. At a national level she is also actively engaged in processes of legal capacity reform, and co-ordinates a working group of civil society organizations on this issue, as well as a group of organizations supporting the emergence of a National Platform of Self Advocates with Intellectual Disability.
Internationally, Dr. Flynn has supported the Secretariat of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and in particular the working group which prepared a draft General Comment on Article 12 (legal capacity). She has published widely in international peer reviewed journals on disability rights issues, and is the author of two monographs published by Cambridge University Press and Ashgate.
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Elvira Bešlija
Mrs. Elvira Bešlija, born in 1953 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Sarajevo in 1982.
She is one of the founders of the Association for Paraplegics where she works as Secretary General since 1980.
Mrs. Bešlija, is editor in chief of the journal Paraplegia and Us and former director of the paraplegics` sports games in BiH. Also, she is the President of the Council for the Persons with Disabilities in BiH and the President of the Union of the Organizations for the Persons with Disabilities in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH).
Mrs. Bešlija is actively engaged in the field of the rights of the persons with disabilities as a legal consultant, coordinator and trainer, as well as an author, co-author and editor of numerous publications in BiH.
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