IOHR’s Pro-bono Legal Council
What is the legal council?
The legal board is a specially selected group of practicing lawyers and LLM students who advise and inform the International Observatory of Human Rights’ work with legal counsel, support and research.
Who are the legal council?
Lawyers
Usha R. Sood
Usha offers support to numerous charitable and public interest cases. She also combined this with an academic career as Senior Lecturer in Law at Nottingham Trent University. Usha has numerous specialist areas including work on child abduction cases, dowry recovery, human rights, child and human trafficking, public law cases, and international family and civil law litigation.
Nour Sakr
Nour has a wealth of commercial legal experience as well as being a Trustee/Legal Advisor for the charity Refugees Welcome. She has provided refugee support at the British Red Cross and legal research for Human Rights watch. She has a master’s degree from London Metropolitan University in International Human Rights and Social Justice as well as an LLB from the University of Damascus.
LLM Students – Queen Mary, University of London.
Aimen Taimur – LLM Human Rights Law
Aimen Taimur is an LLM Human Rights Law student at the Queen Mary University of London. She holds an LLB degree with a distinction in her dissertation focused on politico legal accountability from the University of London. She has worked on various projects with Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority from 2016-2018. Currently, she is working with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime with a focus on sex trafficking and migrant smuggling cases.
Lavinia Spiess – LLM Human Rights Law
Lavinia Spieß (Spiess) is an LLM student of Human Rights at Queen Mary University of London. She holds a master’s degree in Law from the University of Graz (Austria) where she has specialised in International Law and Human Rights. She focused her research on current conflicts in the Middle East and completed her studies with a dissertation on the legal status of individuals in armed conflicts, especially the civil war in Syria.
Shrutika Gandhi – LLM Public International Law
Shrutika Gandhi is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Public International Law from Queen Mary, University of London. She graduated with a law degree from City, University of London in July 2018. Before moving to London for my studies, I interned as a researcher for the National Centre for Advocacy Studies in India. Her key research interests are – Statelessness crisis in Myanmar, issues relating to the legality of humanitarian intervention, and legality of counter terrorism measures such deprivation of citizenship and torture.”
Jason Onumbu – LLM Laws
Jason Onumbu is studying modules including International Refugee Law and Migration, Security and Human Rights and the Protection of Human Rights in the UK. Having interned at solicitors firms in the UK, Jason is now particularly concerned with the resettlement of displaced people and in the issue of human trafficking – a topic on which he is writing his dissertation on the issue of human trafficking in Nigeria.
Sahil Jain – LLM Laws
Sahil is a masters (LLM) student studying at Queen Mary University of London. His specialisation is international human rights, international environmental law and law of the sea. Sahil has had internships at various legal firms in Mumbai as well as working for the Chief Justice of India.
What does the legal council do?
The LLM student board meet once a week to work on researching the legal aspect of IOHR’s advocacy campaigns and cases.
Why does IOHR have a legal council?
Working closely with our legal partners no the board we aim to challenge international violations of freedoms with the support of the appropriate legal expertise.