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New Tactics is very pleased to introduce you to the 'Using Shadow Reports for Advocacy' featured dialogue resource practitioners!  If you would like to contact one of these practitioners directly, you may click on the names that provide a hyperlink to their New Tactics personal biography account. Please click on the 'contact' tab to send a message to their email.  

Cees Flinterman, member UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

More information to come...

Lisa Myers is the Coordinator of the NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. She joined the NGO Group in 2005. She has a BSc in Experimental Psychology from the University of Sussex (UK) and a Masters in Development Studies from the Graduate Institute of Development Studies (Switzerland). Lisa has also worked with children (including street children and refugee children) and issues related to them in China, Guatemala, the UK and Switzerland.

Nicholas Opiyo works as an Advocate of the High Court of Uganda and he is also a member of the Uganda Law Society and the East African Law Society. He is also a Consulting Associate on Human Rights with Akijul Consultancy in Kampala, Uganda. He is a member of several human rights initiatives in Uganda which include among other the Coalition Against Torture and the Police Accountability Project of Human Rights Network Uganda.

Nicholas previously worked as a Policy and Advocacy Officer with the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) where his main brief included research, treaty reporting and advocacy. He has also worked with the International Criminal Court, the Centre for Conflict Management and Peace Studies of Gulu University and the Gulu District Land Tribunal.

Among the major consultancy work that he has undertaken is the National Consultation on Agenda Item No. 3 in the Juba Peace Talks, the drafting of the Prevention of Torture Bill 2009, the establishment of the Right to Health Unit of the Uganda Human Rights Commission, drafting of the guidelines on demonstration for the Uganda Human Rights Commission and the formation of the Independent Development Fund Uganda (a CSO funding mechanism). Currently, Nicholas is undertaking national consultation on the Uganda Police Review

Tara M. Collins has worked in international human rights since 1996.  Her professional experience includes work as the coordinator of a national non-governmental organization, and as a policy adviser and researcher for the Canadian federal government (Department of Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)) and Parliament.  Her doctoral research examined the monitoring of child rights and included analyses of international and regional human rights standards, institutions and processes as well as case studies of Canada and South Africa.  She was recently a replacement professor for the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa, where her various teaching responsibilities including international development issues in Africa, development and ethics, international humanitarian and human rights law.  In September 2009, she will take up a Marie Curie Fellowship in Childhood Research at University College Dublin, Ireland, as part of its Egalitarian World Initiative (EWI) funded by the European Union. Her publications include a co-authored report on Canada’s implementation of general measures of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to be published in September 2009 by UNICEF.  She has been invited as a child rights expert by the Council of Europe to a consultation and has presented project results to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.  She is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children. 

Yves Niyiragira is from Burundi. He lives in Nairobi, Kenya where he is co-editor of the African Union Monitor, an initiative of Fahamu-networks for social networks. Fahamu is a not for profit organisation whose mission is to support and nurture movements for social justice in Africa. He also sits on the board of Open Hands Studio, which is a non-profit organisation that partners with communities across the world to develop creative media projects and educational museum exhibits that nurture social justice. He has a keen interest in human rights and politics.

Paul Mageean is the Director of the Graduate School for Professional Legal Education at the University of Ulster.  He qualified as a solicitor in 1991 and spent almost five years in private practice with one of Belfast’s leading criminal law firms, P.J. McGrory & Co. In 1995 Paul joined the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), Northern Ireland’s foremost human rights organisation, as their Legal Officer.  During his time at CAJ, Paul successfully brought a number of cases to the European Court of Human Rights leading to the ground-breaking judgments of Kelly v UK and Shanaghan v UK.  Paul also led CAJ’s policy work on emergency laws, criminal justice, and inquests.  Paul authored the New Tactics Tactical Notebook, International Monitoring Bodies sharing how CAJ successfully utilized shadow reports to the Committee Against Torture - one of the mechanisms available through the United Nations for monitoring governments that have signed international conventions. After a short period as Acting Director at CAJ, Paul joined the Court Service as Head of the Criminal Justice Secretariat in 2004, where he had responsibility for ensuring implementation of the relevant recommendations of the Criminal Justice Review within the Court Service.  Before taking up his current appointment, he spent three years with Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland which has a statutory remit to inspect the criminal justice agencies.  Paul has published a number of academic articles on the human rights aspects of the peace process.  He has also been involved in extensive human rights training, particularly in the Middle East.