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The daily work of the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) is conducted by the Secretariat. The policy-making body of ISHR, which oversees the work of the Secretariat, is the Board.
Our current Board members are:
Ms Mehr Khan Williams (Pakistan), Chair
Ms Mehr Khan Williams has held senior management positions in New York, Florence and Bangkok with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and has also served as Acting Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Sydney. Until July 2004, she was UNICEF’s Regional Director in East Asia and the Pacific based in Bangkok, and until October 2006, she was Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights. Prior to joining the United Nations, Ms Khan Williams worked for the World Bank in Washington, D.C., the Associated Press of Pakistan, United Press International and the University of Karachi. She has written extensively on development and human rights issues for the international media. She has also served as a Trustee of the United Kingdom Committee for UNICEF, as a Board member of Plan International, and as a member of the Council of Minority Rights Group.
Ms Rosemary McCreery (Ireland), Vice-Chair
Rosemary McCreery began her career in international development with UNICEF in Togo in 1979, after serving in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ireland for several years. In Togo, and subsequently in Madagascar and Indonesia, she worked with governments to develop UNICEF-supported programmes of cooperation intended to improve the health and well-being of women and children. In 1990, Ms McCreery established in Romania UNICEF’s first office in Eastern Europe since the mid-1950s. She also served as Director of the Cambodia Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1998 to 2000, working on the promotion of civil and political rights. In 2000 she returned to UNICEF to head the office for Russia, Ukraine and Belarus until 2003. Programmes in these countries included young people’s health, development and HIV/AIDS prevention as well as child protection. During her career, Rosemary also held senior management posts in UNICEF headquarters and in the UN Secretariat.
Mr Jean-Marie Fakhouri (Switzerland/Lebanon), Treasurer
Mr Jean-Marie Fakhouri has more than 25 years experience managing humanitarian operations and complex emergencies for the United Nations in Iraq, Sudan, Malaysia, Somalia and at headquarters, including as the UN Humanitarian and Resident Coordinator in Iraq and as the Director of UNHCR’s Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific. Mr. Fakhouri also served as the UNHCR Controller and Director of Resource Management, responsible for a budget of US 1.1 billion and personnel matters affecting some 5000 UNHCR staff. Mr Fakhouri has a ‘Licence en Sciences Economiques’ from the Université St-Esprit in Lebanon and is a certified accountant (H.E.C., Centre National d’Etudes Supérieures, Belgium). Born in Egypt, Mr Fakhouri is a Lebanese and Swiss citizen retired in Switzerland.
Ms Sunila Abeysekera (Sri Lanka)
Ms Sunila Abeysekera took over the helm of IWRAW Asia-Pacific in April 2008. Actively involved in women’s rights and human rights in the Asian region and globally over the last 25 years, Ms Abeysekera has acted as a trainer on issues of women’s rights and human rights, conflict transformation, and peace building. She has also worked as a researcher and writer of many publications on issues of women and conflict, and on reproductive rights and sexual rights issues. Sunila is a part of many vibrant civil society organisations in Sri Lanka, and is one of the founders of INFORM Human Rights Documentation Centre and of the Women and Media Collective in Sri Lanka.
Besides her work at the national level and in previous partnership with IWRAW Asia Pacific, Ms Abeysekera is also closely associated with the Asia Pacific Forum on Women Law and Development (APWLD), SANGAT (the South Asian Network of Gender Activists and Trainers), the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum Asia), the Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights, and is a key partner in the Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders and in the Feminist Dialogues process. She is a member of the global Civil Society Organizations Committee of the UNDP Administrator and was awarded the UN Human Rights Prize in 1998 for her work on human rights in the Asia-Pacific region.
Ms Reine Alapini-Gansou (Benin)
Ms Reine Alapini-Gansou is the Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders for the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. She has a long history as a Commissioner and Special Rapporteur, and has been a member of the Working Group on the elderly and disabled. Ms Alapini-Gansou is primarily a very committed human rights defender in her country and within the sub-region. This commitment goes back more than 20 years. Researcher in the law faculties of universities of Abomey-Calavi and Parakou (Benin), Ms Alapini-Gansou holds a Masters in business law and legal careers, a law degree from the Common Law of Business and a postgraduate diploma in law and environmental policy. In these capacities, she is called upon as a consultant in women's rights, environmental policy, and for the drafting of laws and rights. She has published several articles and participated in several publications.
Mr Gustavo Gallón (Colombia)
Mr Gustavo Gallón has been the founding Director of the Colombian Commission of Jurists, one of the leading Latin American human rights NGOs, since 1988. He has also held senior posts with other Colombian human rights organisations such as the Center for Investigation and Popular Education (CINEP). In addition, he has served on several high-level inter-sectorial commissions established to pursue peace and increased respect for human rights in Colombia. Mr Gallón also has extensive experience and expertice from both the UN and the Inter-American human rights systems. He was the UN Special Rapporteur on Equatorial Guinea from 1999 to 2002. He was born in Cali, Colombia and he speaks English, French, and Italian.
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Mr Walter Kälin (Switzerland)
Mr Walter Kälin is a Swiss legal scholar and professor of constitutional and international law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bern. Mr Kälin has been closely concerned with issues of internally displaced persons (IDPs) for over a decade, having served as chair of the committee of legal experts that developed the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and having authored numerous books on the subject, including the Annotations to the Guiding Principles (American Society of International Law, Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, 2008, revised edition). Mr Kälin was the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons from 2004 to 2010. He was a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee from 2003 to 2008. From 1991 to 1992, Mr Kälin served as the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the situation of human rights in Kuwait under Iraqi Occupation.
Mr Chris Sidoti (Australia)
Mr Chris Sidoti is a human rights lawyer, activist and teacher. He currently works from Sydney, Australia, as an international human rights consultant, specialising in the international human rights system and in national human rights institutions. He was director of the International Service for Human Rights, based in Geneva, Switzerland, from 2003 to 2007. He has been Australian Human Rights Commissioner (1995-2000), Australian Law Reform Commissioner (1992-1995) and Foundation Director of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (1987-1992). He has also worked in non-governmental organisations, including for the Human Rights Council of Australia and the Australian Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. In 2007-08 he was the independent chair of the United Kingdom Government’s Northern Ireland Bill of Rights Forum. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Western Sydney, Griffith University (Queensland) and the Australian Catholic University, a Fellow of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University and an Affiliate at the Sydney Centre for International Law at the University of Sydney.
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