Janet Sallah-Njie (Gambia) –Board Chair
Ms Sallah-Njie, is a leading Gambian legal practitioner and women’s rights advocate as Founding President of the legal aid organisation Female Lawyers Association of The Gambia (FLAG). She has invested over two decades in practice and runs her law firm, Torodo Chambers as well as in various initiatives promoting human rights, including offering legal advice on a voluntary basis to West Africa Public Interest Litigation Centre (WAPILC), Girl Guides Association of The Gambia, FAWEGAM, The Francis Degaulle Njie Foundation in The Gambia. A former vice-Chair of the Gambia Bar Association, African Centre on Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS) among others. She also serves on the Boards of ActionAid International The Gambia (Board Chair), and past Vice president Gambia Bar Association. Ms Sallah-Njie has also worked as Solicitor-General of the Gambia (1998-2000). She is married with four children.
Hon. Justice Amina Adamu Augie (Nigeria) Vice Chair
Honorable Justice Amina Adamu Augie is a Justice of the Court of Appeal in Nigeria and her career began in 1979 when she served as a Legal Aid Officer in Sokoto. She lectured at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (1980 – 1981), served as Senior State Counsel in the Office of the Chief Counsel to President Shehu Shagari, (1982-1984). She lectured at the Nigerian Law School, Lagos (1984-1988); served as Chief Magistrate at Sokoto State Judiciary (1988-1992) and as High Court Judge at Sokoto State Judiciary (1992-2002). She was appointed a Justice of the Court of Appeal in 2002. Presently she is a Member of the National Working Group on Juvenile Justice Administration, Chairperson of the Experts Consultative Meeting on the Passage of the Child Rights Bill, member of the National Child Rights Implementation Committee (NCRIC) and Chairperson of the National Facilitators of the Child Rights Act in Nigeria.
Julia Harrington Reddy (United States of America)
Ms. Harrington Reddy, is the co-founder of IHRDA and its first Executive Director (1998-2003). She is currently a Senior Legal Officer (Equality and Citizenship) at the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), based in New York. She holds degrees in social science and law from Harvard University. She was a legal officer at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights for four years before co-founding IHRDA.
Soad Milad Nesseem (Egypt)
Ms Milad is a child protection and children’s rights specialist. She is the former Assistant Regional Director for Middle East and the Regional Educational Advisor for Middle East at SOS Kinderdorf International. She is currently a consultant for organisational support of Wataneya Society for the Development of Orphanages. Ms. Milad brings experience working on Children’s issues as IHRDA seeks to develop its work with the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and welfare of the Child. Additionally, in a bid to address geographical balance, Ms. Milad will assist IHRDA in having an in-road into North Africa. As we seek to develop our work in Arabic, she brings a much needed resource in that language to IHRDA.
Ms Milad holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from American University in Cairo.
Katherine Mulhern (United Kingdom)
Ms Mulhern is a Partner in Kaye Scholer’s Corporate Department. She is a New York-qualified and U.K.-qualified capital markets lawyer focusing on international equity and debt capital markets. Ms. Mulhern has a wide range of experience in primary and secondary equity securities issues work both in the U.K. and internationally. Ms. Mulhern has worked on a series of high-profile insurance-related offerings in recent years, including SEGRO’s placing and open offer in connection with the acquisition of Brixton plc and on its £500 million rights issue; Shaftesbury’s rights issue; and Smurfit Kappa’s initial public offering. Prior to joining Kaye Scholer, Ms. Mulhern was head of the U.S. capital markets practice at Hogan Lovells, before which she was seconded with the equity capital markets group of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Gilles Cistac (Mozambique)
Gilles Cistac is professor of law Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) in Maputo. From here, he teaches, co-ordinates the Master programme and sits on various university governance bodies. He consults with civil society, international organisations and the Mozambican government in policy and statute development. He serves as Co-ordinator on the board of UEM’s Rev. Jur. da Faculdade de Direito (juridical review of Faculty of Law) and is visiting professor of law at University of Toulouse I, where he has earlier studied. He has authored numerous published journal articles and books. He retains a keen research interest in electoral, constitutional and administrative law. He speaks Portuguese, French and Spanish, with some Chinese, Italian and English.
Abake Williams (Gambia)
Ms Abake Williams is a renowned Accountant with a BA in Business Accounting (Hons) which she acquired from the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside. Due to her peculiar flare to achieve results, she was audit team leader for Deloitte and Touché (1998 – 1999), a Stock and Sales Accountant and Planning and Performance Analyst (2000 – 2004), the West African Regional Lubricant Finance Analyst (2004 – 2006), Shell Oil Product Africa (SOPAF) Operational Expenses Manager for Shell Marketing Gambia Limited(2006 – 2008), Head of Finance for Prime Bank Gambia Limited (April 2009 – June 2011) and group head for Corporate Support and Control (July – November 2011) responsible for finance, internal control, human capital and legal and compliance corporate communication functions. She is also a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, Member of the Gambia Association of Accountants, and Board Member of CIAM Public Health Research and Development Center. Ms Abake Williams loves caring for her family, cooking, number crunching and meeting people.
Pascal Kambale (Democratic Republic of Congo)
Mr Kambale is the Deputy Director of Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP) at the Open Society Institute based in Dakar. A Congolese human rights lawyer and former lecturer at the Catholic University of Graben in Butembo, eastern Congo, he studied International Law, Humanitarian Law, and Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School and the University of Kinshasa. Mr Kambale has previously worked for Human Rights Watch (HRW), and the UN Peacekeeping Mission to Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL). Most recently, he served as member of the Commission of Inquiry into the Post Election Violence (CIPEV) in Kenya.
David Padilla (United States of America)
Dr Padilla was Assistant Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights from 1980 to 2001. He holds a PhD in Law from the University of Detroit as well as master’s degrees in international affairs, international law and public administration. He taught at the American University law school from 1987-1996. He is currently extraordinary professor at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria.
