Current Advisory
Council Members
Sabine is one of the most experienced voices in international relations, cultural diplomacy, and human rights in the Netherlands. Trained as an international lawyer at the University of Amsterdam and the European University Institute in Florence, she built a distinguished career at the intersection of law, international affairs, and civil society.
She served for over a decade at the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, representing the Netherlands at UNESCO and the European Union on World Heritage, Second World War looted art, and the illicit traffic in cultural goods. In 2007 she joined the City of Amsterdam as Senior Adviser International Relations, and in 2014 was appointed Director of the International Office of the City of Amsterdam — serving as advisor to the Mayor and Vice-Mayors on international affairs.
Sabine is Chair of the Board of ICORN — the International Cities of Refuge Network — which has hosted hundreds of writers and artists at risk, including human rights defenders. She is also a member of the Board of the Leiden Asia Centre and the Advisory Council of the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies.
Tom Pearson is Head of the International Relations Department at Paragon International University in Phnom Penh, where he also teaches courses in law, economics, and international relations. He also serves as Of Counsel at IAO Asia and as a Research Advisor at Future Forum Cambodia. Previously, he was an Associate Professor of Law at American University of Phnom Penh. He began teaching international arbitration, business law, and labor law courses, among others, at the Royal University of Law & Economics at the undergraduate and graduate levels in 2012 and also managed two LL.M. programs in international law there. He also taught economics at the National University of Management. He has lectured to students in Australia, Hungary, and the U.S.
Prior to moving into full-time academic work, he served as partner and head of the corporate and commercial practice group at a mid-sized commercial law firm in Phnom Penh, where he assisted a diverse range of local and international clients. He is trained as a commercial arbitrator, and has consulted for various organizations, including the United Nations.
Before moving to Cambodia, he practiced corporate, family, and criminal law in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Prior to that, he conducted research at public policy organizations in Washington, DC. His research interests include institutional, social, and legal development, including rulemaking, dispute resolution, and social hierarchies; legal, social, and economic exchange among diverse groups; governance institutions and mechanisms within “ungoverned” societies; International Human Rights Law and policy; and critical approaches to international law.
He holds degrees in law, human rights and democratisation, and political economy.
Stefania is an information and knowledge management specialist committed to advancing access to justice through open, reliable, and inclusive information systems. With over two decades of experience in human rights education and research, she works to bridge the gap between knowledge, technology, and public access to information.
As Head Librarian and Repository Coordinator at the Global Campus of Human Rights, she champions initiatives that promote open access, digital preservation, and the global visibility of human rights scholarship — transforming knowledge into a public resource that is discoverable, accessible, and reusable across borders and communities.
On OLJA's Advisory Council, Stefania contributes expertise in open knowledge infrastructures, information governance, and digital inclusion — advocating for a future in which legal and human rights knowledge is treated as a public good, accessible to all.
Yosra is a human rights practitioner and programme manager with more than ten years of experience working on minority rights, freedom of religion or belief, equality, and anti-discrimination in Egypt and across South West Asia and North Africa.
Her work applies an intersectional lens to examine how laws and policies affect vulnerable groups differently — and to assess the effectiveness of equality and anti-discrimination frameworks in protecting religious, ethnic, linguistic, gender, and other marginalised communities across the MENA region.
Yosra holds an MSc in Development Studies from Lund University, Sweden, an MA in Comparative Politics from the American University in Cairo, and an MA in Religion, Politics and Citizenship from the University of Eastern Piedmont and the University of Padova, Italy.
Her expertise in minority rights and intersectional legal analysis brings a critical dimension to OLJA's legislative research and reform advocacy work.
Diego is a Spanish lawyer and activist who served as Head of Policy of EDRi — the European Digital Rights network — from 2014 to 2024. He now works as an independent expert, continuing to advocate for the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms online, with a focus on the use of technologies in authoritarian regimes, the digitalisation of workplaces, and digital sovereignty.
Diego also previously served as President of the EMAlumni Association — the alumni network of the European Master's in Human Rights and Democratisation.
Diego's expertise in digital rights, surveillance, and the intersection of technology and authoritarian power brings a critical dimension to OLJA's legal technology programme, ensuring our own tools are built with the same scrutiny we apply to the systems we challenge.
Yasmin Omar is an international lawyer with more than 15 years of experience practicing, researching, and advancing public international law, international human rights law, democratic governance, and the rule of law through litigation, multilateral engagement, and international legal practice.
Throughout her career, Yasmin has worked with leading international organizations in Washington, D.C., Geneva, and the United Nations, advising on complex legal, policy, and governance issues across the Middle East and North Africa. Her work has included serving as a Legal Consultant with the United Nations Team of Experts on Rule of Law and Sexual Violence in Conflict, supporting rule of law initiatives, accountability efforts, and institutional reform in conflict-affected countries.
Before relocating to the United States, Yasmin built a distinguished legal career in Egypt as a human rights lawyer and advocate, representing victims of arbitrary detention, torture, and other serious human rights violations, while leading strategic litigation and legal advocacy aimed at advancing legal and policy reform.
Based in the United States, Yasmin currently works as an independent international legal practitioner and Country Conditions Expert, providing expert testimony before U.S. Immigration Courts and advising attorneys, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, and philanthropic donors on international law, human rights, refugee law, governance, and regional developments.
Yasmin holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in International Law from Syracuse University College of Law and a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from Cairo University. She is the recipient of the Open Society Foundations Civil Society Leadership Award and has authored publications on international law, democratic governance, and human rights.
Łukasz is a legal scholar working at the intersection of international human rights law and technology. He is an Assistant Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and Director for European Affairs at The Neurorights Foundation, where he builds open-source tools that make the UN human rights system usable in practice — including the UN Human Rights Database, giving practitioners paragraph-level access to the documents adopted by UN treaty bodies and other UN mechanisms.
His research examines how emerging technologies — from large language models to brain-computer interfaces — strain existing human rights frameworks, and what legal and institutional reforms they demand.
He was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Columbia University's Neurotechnology Center (2024–25), a re:constitution fellow hosted by HURIDOCS (2025–26), and previously coordinated data for the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty.
Saeede is a researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Galway, specialising in migration and refugee studies, human rights, and legal studies, with a particular interest in gender, children's rights, and climate-related migration.
She brings several years of experience in academic research, legal education, refugee advocacy, and direct work with migrants and asylum seekers, with a particular focus on Afghan forced migration and refugee protection in Iran and the wider region.
Alongside her academic work, Saeede has contributed to public awareness and human rights advocacy through articles published in national newspapers and other media outlets, and has organised and contributed to public webinars and knowledge-sharing initiatives on women's and children's rights, transitional justice, and migration.
Laura is a licensed attorney with a five-year Law Degree from the University of Padua and an additional Master of Laws from the United Nations Interregional Crime & Justice Research Institute (UNICRI). She has completed additional studies in Ethics and Corporate Accountability and holds a certificate in Leadership & Management from Harvard Business School Online.
Laura has more than a decade of professional experience across Europe, Africa, and Asia in international human rights law, refugee law, and international criminal law, among others. She has worked with organisations including UNHCR, EUAA, IOM, the Italian Red Cross, and European Lawyers in Lesvos in emergency response, mixed migration, and protracted displacement contexts, developing expertise in asylum and refugee protection, including refugee status determination and resettlement.
Laura has additional experience as a legal researcher in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her professional background also includes legal practice in Italy, specialising in refugee, immigration, and criminal law.
In 2023, Laura was awarded the Melvin Jones Fellowship for dedicated humanitarian service by Lions Club International. She is committed to principles of ethical leadership, fairness, and collaboration, both in her professional work and in everyday life.
Vito is a legal expert focusing on international humanitarian law, international criminal law, and issues related to international justice and accountability. He is a Legal Advisor at Amnesty International (International Secretariat), currently on sabbatical leave until September 2027. Between 2018 and 2022, he was a Legal Advisor for the Middle East and North Africa Programme of the International Commission of Jurists based in Tunis, with a special focus on Libya, Palestine/Israel, and other situations of armed conflict in the region.
Vito holds a PhD in international law from Aarhus University, Denmark, a Master's Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation from the Global Campus of Human Rights in Venice, Italy, and a Law Degree from the University of Ferrara, Italy. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Trento, a Visiting Researcher at the Swedish Defence University in Stockholm, and a Visiting Fellow at the Amsterdam Center for International Law.
Vito has also taught courses at a number of universities, including international human rights strategic litigation and advocacy at American University Washington College of Law, and international humanitarian law at the University of Trento and Aarhus University. He is a Fellow at the Centre for European Legal Studies on Macro-Crime at the University of Ferrara.