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Open Society Justice Initiative

New York, United States
Joined November 2011
Presence in: United States

The Open Society Justice Initiative uses law to protect and empower people around the world. Through litigation, advocacy, research, and technical assistance, the Justice Initiative promotes human rights and builds legal capacity for open societies. We foster accountability for international crimes, combat racial discrimination and statelessness, support criminal justice reform, address abuses related to national security and counterterrorism, expand freedom of information and expression, and stem corruption linked to the exploitation of natural resources. Our staff are based in Abuja, Amsterdam, Bishkek, Brussels, Budapest, Freetown, The Hague, London, Mexico City, New York, Paris, Phnom Penh, Santo Domingo and Washington, D.C.

People Associated With This Organization

Anahit Papikyan

Armenia  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined October 2015
Work in the area of Public Health. The goal of the program is to advance the health and human rights of vulnerable.

Beatriz Esperanca

Germany  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined January 2019
Interests: Environmental Justice, Governance, Accountability & Transparency, Housing Rights & Informal Settlements, Labor & Employment, Livelihoods
I am an Aryeh Neier Fellow at the Open Society Justice Initiative focusing on issues of economic justice, particularly on the interrelationship between debt and human rights. In the past year, I worked on the right to housing in Europe, using fundamental rights arguments to protect people in mortgage distress. Currently, I am expanding my focus outside of Europe, looking into microfinance and the potential human rights abuses attached to these small loans.

Cassandre Theano

United States  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined December 2015
Cassandre Theano is an associate legal officer for the Open Society Justice Initiative, based in the New York office, focusing on citizenship and equality.

Before joining the Open Society Foundations, Theano consulted on human rights reports for submission before the United Nations, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the Human Rights Commission for various nonprofit organizations. Previously, Theano was a litigation associate practicing complex commercial and insurance litigation at a national law firm.

She holds a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, with a concentration on international human rights law and a certificate in refugees and humanitarian emergencies. At Georgetown Law, she participated in the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, where she successfully advocated for women’s land and property rights in Kenya. She was also the articles editor of the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law. She earned her undergraduate degree in international relations and French literature and her master’s degree in French society, politics, and culture from New York University.

Coline Schupfer

United Kingdom  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined February 2020
Interests: Community / Customary Land Rights, Criminal Justice, Gender-based violence, Generalist Legal Services, Right to Information, Traditional / Customary Justice, Women's Rights
I work on legal empowerment and access to justice issues - with a focus on women's rights, criminal justice, migration & tech.

Ikechukwu Uzoma

Germany  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined November 2019
Interests: Environmental Justice, Right to Information
Ikechukwu Uzoma is an Aryeh Neier Fellow of Open Society Justice Initiative based in Berlin. An international law expert, he supports the advocacy, strategic litigation, research and CSO partnerships of the Justice Initiative around the world.
Prior to joining OSJI, Ikechukwu was a program affiliate scholar of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University (NYU) Law School. In this role he researched the impact of climate change of human rights in Africa. Ikechukwu received his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) from Abia State University, Uturu in 2012 and graduated first class from the Nigerian Law School in 2014.
In 2017, Ikechukwu completed a Master of Laws program at NYU Law School where he was a member of the Global Justice Clinic and worked on business and human rights issues arising out of Ghana and Guyana. Following his LL.M, Ikechukwu worked as the NYU International Law and Human Rights fellow in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) of the United Nations at the headquarters in New York. In this capacity, he worked on the operationalization of the Special Criminal Court in the Central African Republic.

Jillian Winkler

United States  
Open Society Justice Initiative (Unverified)
Joined November 2020
Interests: Community / Customary Land Rights, Environmental Justice, Livelihoods, Women's Rights
My background is in Refugee Rights and Gender Justice, with a particular focus on community empowerment and grassroots organizing. I currently work with the Economic Justice project within OSJI, where I hope to add a gender justice lens in our ongoing work, as we engage in water justice and other economic justice issues. I have also worked with our Civic Space and National Security teams, lending programmatic support. I want to get more involved and gain more knowledge around Namati's work, as I have seen the close relationship garnered with our own Legal Empowerment team, and I see Legal Empowerment as one of the most sincere bottom-up approaches that needs to be taken in creating change in the human rights field. I would love to learn more about how Namati is engaging with grassroots organizations and how I can further develop my organizing and community empowerment skills as well, always keeping an intersectional lens along the way. I hope to combine my passion of gender justice and refugee rights with that of grassroots organizing and community empowerment, as I see participatory action as one of the key factors in securing the rights for all and implementing sustainable change.

Jillian Winkler

United States  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined July 2019
Interests: Citizenship & Identification, Community / Customary Land Rights, Environmental Justice, Livelihoods, Right to Information, Women's Rights
I studied Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, focusing on refugee rights. From that, my focus has been working with civil society groups in improving the progress of human rights for all, in particular, the most targeted and vulnerable groups. I have worked in both refugee rights and with political dissidents, then moved to grassroots organizing, where I led campaigns for various nonprofit organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Doctors Without Borders, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Currently I work as a Program Coordinator within the Open Society Justice Initiative, within the Economic Justice and Civic Space project teams. Through both my past and current experience, I want to explore how economic justice and civic space issues affect women and refugees in particular, while using a participatory method to ensure the inclusion of affected communities in the work being done. I believe that engaging in community engagement and mobilization will not only create a more sustainable path in human rights progress, but is the most transparent, sincere method in ensuring that those working in this field know the needs of the vulnerable communities for whom we are working. Affected communities must be involved in decision making, after all, it is their lives who are affected the most.

Julia Wang

United States  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined January 2021
Interests: Community / Customary Land Rights, Environmental Justice, Governance, Accountability & Transparency, Housing Rights & Informal Settlements, Labor & Employment
I am working at Open Society Justice Initiative as a fellow in the Legal Empowerment team. I am looking to join the network and learn about the work done in this field to better support partners and projects that center around legal empowerment.

Kersty McCourt

Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined October 2012

Lanna Hollo

France  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined March 2016
Interests: Citizenship & Identification, Community / Customary Land Rights, Criminal Justice, Environmental Justice, Governance, Accountability & Transparency, Housing Rights & Informal Settlements, Livelihoods, Peace-building & Transitional Justice, Right to Information, Traditional / Customary Justice
I am a legal officer with Open Society Justice Initiative working on discrimination issues, especially ethnic profiling and discrimination against Travellers in the housing sector. I will be supporting 2 pilot projects making use of legal empowerment methodologies to monitor, document and litigate against problems in these areas. In joining the network, I would like to benefit from existing resources for collecting, storing and evaluating data so that it most effectively undergirds advocacy and litigation, and better understand the manner that legal empowerment supports community organizing. I would also like to learn lessons from other contexts, positive and negative.

Marguerite Angelari

Germany  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined May 2020
Interests: Environmental Justice, Livelihoods
I'm a senior legal officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative where I lead our economic justice work.

Mariana Pena

Netherlands  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined September 2016
Mariana Pena has been working in the field of international justice for the past ten years, focusing primarily on victims’ access to justice and reparations, and the role of civil society in transitional justice contexts. She’s currently a Legal Officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative. Prior to that, she was a consultant for national and international NGOs, and donors. She worked previously with the victims’ legal representatives in one of the Kenya cases before the International Criminal Court (ICC) and, before that, she was the International Federation for Human Rights’ Permanent Representative to the ICC. She held volunteer positions with the ICC’s Registry, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the American NGO Coalition for the ICC. Ms. Pena is a qualified attorney in her native country, Argentina, where she handled domestic litigation and also worked as a tribunal clerk. She holds a law degree from El Salvador University (Argentina), a master’s degree in international and comparative law from Uppsala University (Sweden), and a master’s degree in international organizations from Paris I University (France). She is a published author of articles on international tribunals and victims’ access to justice, and is fluent in English, French, Italian and Spanish.

Marina Ilminska

Germany  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined November 2019
Interests: Criminal Justice, Governance, Accountability & Transparency, Right to Information
I work at the Open Society Justice Initiative predominantly in the area of pretrial justice, but also had supported projects that concern international justice, economic justice, SDGs/Goal 16, among many others. By joining this network I look forward to learning from experts on the ground in different countries and who are members of the network as well.

Marina van Riel

United States  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined October 2015
Resident Fellow with the Open Society Justice Initiative.

Mohmmad Osman Fahim Osman

Afghanistan  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined July 2015
I have 12 years of progressively responsible experience working for UN, USAID, Government and
other international development, Civil Society Organizations, justice support programs. I was also actively involved in the
preparation of Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) and leading legal aspects (Legal framework)
of Public Private Partnership as first initiatives in Afghanistan.
My experience includes both specialized and senior level service in Project Management, M&E, Training, Legal
Advisory, Consultancy and Local Governance. I also have extensive experience in developing project proposal
and in the preparation of staffing plans, work plans and budgets to support project. In my past general work
experience, I have been directly responsible for planning, organizing and directing the work of complex
organizations that have been widely recognized for their efficiency and effectiveness.
Throughout my career. My work experience includes numerous positions in which I have successfully developed
the capacity of both individual staff members and the full organization.
I am accustomed to living and working in a multicultural environment and have a proven record of adapting well
to a wide variety of work place cultures. My tri-lingual language abilities (Dari/Pushto/English) and strong
written and verbal communication skills allow me to communicate effectively with both local and international
staff, professional colleagues and outside customers.

Natasha Arnpriester

United States  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined March 2018
Interests: Citizenship & Identification
Focusing on rights related to forced displacement, citizenship and statelessness.

Ostalinda Maya

Hungary  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined October 2016
Working for Open Society Justice Initiatives

Sandy Coliver

United States  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined February 2012
Open Society Justice Initiative

Sumaiya Islam

United Kingdom  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined September 2015
legal empowerment practitioner

Contributed Resources:

Taegin Reisman

United States  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined September 2016
Interests: Criminal Justice, Traditional / Customary Justice
Associate Legal Officer for the Open Society Justice Initiative

Zaza Namoradze

Germany  
Open Society Justice Initiative
Joined November 2011
Zaza Namoradze, director of the Open Society Justice Initiative's Berlin office, oversees activities on legal aid and defendants’ rights and legal empowerment and capacity. Since 2016 he also serves as an implementing Lead of the OSFs’ Legal Empowerment Shared Framework. Namoradze previously served as staff attorney and, later, Deputy Director of the Open Society Institute’s Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute, where he designed and oversaw projects in constitutional and judicial reforms, in student law clinics and human rights litigation capacity building in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Namoradze has worked for the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe, the Central Electoral Commission of Georgia and was a member of the State Constitutional Commission of Georgia.
Namoradze graduated from Law Faculty of Tbilisi State University, studied in the comparative constitutionalism program of the Central European University, and earned an LL.M from the University of Chicago Law School.

Contributed Resources:

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