Doudou Diène (Senegal) was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance from 2002 to 2008 and the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Côte d’Ivoire from 2011 to 2014. He is also a former member of the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza conflict. He is a former Director of the Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Division of UNESCO. He is currently a Member of the Board of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. Mr. Diène holds a doctorate in public law from the University of Paris and a diploma in political science from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris.
Lucy Asuagbor (Cameroon) has served in the judiciary of her country for nearly 30 years at different courts and levels. She is currently judge at the Supreme Court of Cameroun. Ms. Asuagbor has also served at the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights since 2004, currently as Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa, as Chairperson of the Working Group on communications, and previously as Chairperson of the Working Group on the Rights of Persons living with HIV/Aids, as Special Rapporteur on the rights of human rights defenders in Africa and as member of the Committee against torture. Ms. Asuagbor holds a B.A. in Law from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, an LLM of International Maritime Law from the University IMLI of Malta, and a Diploma from the
Ecole de la magistrature of Cameroon.
Francoise Hampson (United Kingdom) is Professor of International Law of Armed Conflicts and Human Rights at Essex University. She served as an independent expert member of the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights from 1998-2007. She has litigated numerous cases before the European Court of Human Rights particularly concerning Turkey. She has taught, researched and published widely in the fields of the law of armed conflict, international humanitarian law and on the European Convention on Human Rights. For her work representing Turkish Kurds she was awarded the title of Human Rights Lawyer of the year in 1998. She is currently working on autonomous weapons, investigations into alleged violations in situations of armed conflict and on the use of an individual petition system to address what are widespread or systematic human rights violations.