UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory
UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel is undertaking a mission to South Africa from 29 January until 9 February, led by the Chair of the Commission, Judge Navanethem Pillay and Commissioner Chris Sidoti. The Commissioners will go to Durban, Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Cape Town, and on Thursday 8 February the CHR will be hosting Commissioners Pillay and Sidoti for a public discussion at the CHR’s Iyatsiba Lab.
Venue: The CHR’s Iyatsiba Lab, 66 Greatmore Street, Woodstock (enter via Regents Road)
Time: 3pm-5pm
Moderated by: Heidi Grunebaum, Director of the CHR.
For enquiries email: centreforhumanitiesresearch@uwc.ac.za
Speakers
Navanethem Pillay
Navanethem Pillay served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. She is currently serving as Judge Ad Hoc of the International Court of Justice in the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v Myanmar). She is also the President of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty based in Madrid, the President of the Advisory Council of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy and the Chair of the Quasi-Judicial Inquiry into Detention in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. In 1995, after the end of apartheid, Pillay was appointed acting judge on the South African High Court, and in the same year was elected by the UN General Assembly to be judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she served a total of eight years (1999-2003), the last four as President. In 2003, she was appointed as a judge on the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where she served on the Appeals Chamber until 2008. Ms Pillay was the first woman to start a law practice in her home province of Natal in 1967 and acted as a defence lawyer for anti-apartheid activists, exposing torture, and helping establish rights for prisoners on Robben Island.
Chris Sidoti
Chris Sidoti is an international human rights consultant and an expert in national human rights institutions and in international human rights law and mechanisms. Since February 2021, he is the founder and an International Expert of the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar. From 2017 to 2019, he served as one of the Members of the UN Independent International Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar. Since 2000, he has provided consultancy services on human rights law and practices to the OHCHR, UNDP, UNICEF, the Asia-Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions and several national human rights institutions. Sidoti also holds a number of academic positions. He was Executive Director of the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR; 2003-2007), served as Australian Human Rights Commissioner (1995-2000), Australian Law Reform Commissioner (1992-1995), and Founding Director of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (1987-1992). From 1999 to 2013 he was principal facilitator and interlocutor in a human rights initiative between the Governments of Australia and Myanmar.
