Penn Law International pennlawintl

Anand GroverEminent Human Rights Advocate and UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health (2008-2014)
As we stand on the cusp of enormous change, Anand Grover calls in from India to speak with Associate Dean Rangita de Silva de Alwis on human rights issues intersecting responses to COVID-19.  Anand Grover is one of the world’s foremost health rights advocates and one of India’s preeminent lawyers. At a time of unprecedented crisis, Anand Grover is in the forefront of addressing some of the most urgent and pressing human rights violations. This discussion highlights how black swan events, such as COVID-19, expose the inequalities inherent in societies, deepen faultlines regarding human rights, produce new threats to human rights for all, and can result in roll backs on prior gains. 
 

Agnes CallamardUN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions
Rangita de Silva de Alwis, Associate Dean for International Affairs engages Agnes Callamard on the critical human rights consequences and questions we are facing in the COVID-19 crisis.

Sandie Okoro Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the World Bank GroupThe 2019 Leon C. & June W. Holt Lecture in International Law
Sandie Okoro is the principal advisor and spokesperson on all legal matters for the world’s leading development finance institution; she is the first British national and the first black woman to hold the role. She heads the Legal Vice Presidency Unit where international development legal experts provide legal services essential to World Bank activities and operations. In addition to her official duties, Sandie is an ardent defender and champion for women empowerment, gender equality, and justice for all. She uses her voice and expertise to spark personal and community-based development and push the envelope in tackling gender-based inequalities, particularly among minority groups and women.

Justice Sisi Virginia Khampepe, Constitutional Court of South AfricaAppointed by President Nelson Mandela as Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Justice Sisi Khampepe shares her personal and political narrative as a leader in the journey to end apartheid and in building a nation and its democratic institutions through justice and reconciliation. She looks back on the lessons learned from the TRC Commission and critically examines how the TRC shaped a nation struggling to heal from apartheid. Her discussion also focuses on what forgiveness means in the law and what those lessons can offer South Africa’s future and the world.

Ambassador Crystal Nix-HinesPartner, Quinn Emanuel & U.S. Ambassador to UNESCO (2014-2016)
Crystal Nix-Hines reflects on the challenges facing women in crisis management in the law and in a new global order. Few women in law have seamlessly straddled private and public leadership in the way Nix- Hines has. As a Counselor to the State Department, she helped establish the International War Crimes Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda which have changed the jurisprudence of international criminal justice and feminist legal theory. Nix- Hines was appointed by President Obama as United States Ambassador to UNESCO and then returned to Quinn Emanuel as partner in its newly launched Crisis Law and Strategy Practice Group.

Dr. Roza OtunbayevaFormer President of Kyrgyzstan (Central Asia’s first woman leader)
This discussion shines a light on Otunbayeva's remarkable leadership in building peace in post-conflict and advances the importance of women’s leadership in resolving conflict. Otunbayeva is the only woman head of state to steer her country through a peaceful transition of power and, fearlessly step down from power after the transition.  As president, she led a constitutional creation process that established Kyrgyzstan as the first parliamentary republic in Central Asia. She urged a pluralistic democratic process through then process by bringing to the table all political parties and civil society leaders to draft the new Constitution.