Page 46 - University of Pretoria Research Review 2017

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UN representatives in the Faculty of Law
Christof Heyns
Christof Heyns, Professor of Human Rights Law and Director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law (ICLA), has served and continues to serve in several United Nations expert positions.
Professor Heyns was the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions for the period 2010-2016. This is the premier human rights position in the UN on the protection of life. He undertook investigations for the UN into unlawful killings in trouble spots such
as the Russian-occupied Ukraine, the border conflict in Kashmir, sorcery-related killings in Papua New Guinea, and the narcotics trade in Mexico. He also presented reports
Dire Tladi
Dire Tladi, Professor of International Law and Research Fellow at ICLA, is a member of the UN International Law Commission, a subsidiary organ of the UN General Assembly with the mandate for the progressive development and codification of international law.
Professor Tladi was first elected in 2011 for a five-year period and, in 2016, for a further five-year term. In 2015, he was appointed by the Commission as Special Rapporteur for the topic peremptory norms of general international law (jus cogens). Peremptory norms are the most important rules of international law from which states, under any
Ann Skelton
Professor Ann Skelton, Director of the Centre for Child Law at UP, was elected to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child for the period 2017-2021. Professor Skelton also holds the UNESCO Chair in Education Law in Africa.
The UN Committee is made up of 18 independent experts from around the world, and monitors the compliance of states with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. A large part of the work is the consideration of progress reports presented by the states. The Committee also receives complementary reports from civil society, including NGOs, human rights commissions, and UN
on topics such as armed drones and killer robots to the UN General Assembly in New York.
One of the main tasks of Professor Heyns was to lead a group of researchers to update the Minnesota Protocol, the global standard on the investigation of homicide, including forensics. He served as Chair of the UN Independent Investigation on Burundi, where more than 600 executions and widespread torture were documented.
Professor Heyns currently serves as one of the 18 expert members of the UN Human Rights Committee. Very few human rights experts have held such a wide range of human rights positions in the international system.
circumstances, cannot deviate.
Professor Tladi has thus far produced three detailed
analytical reports on various aspects related to jus cogens. The reports are based on an analysis of state practice, treaties, and domestic and international court cases. To date, the drafting committee of the International Law Commission has adopted 10 drafting conclusions on
the basis of the work of Professor Tladi, with 13 draft conclusions to be considered by the Commission in 2018.
agencies, as well as individual complaints. A relatively new role of the Committee is to undertake inquiries, an aspect that Professor Skelton is particularly interested in, and where lawyers on the Committee have a specific role to play.
The Committee is currently reviewing its general comment on children in the international criminal justice system. This is one of Professor Skelton’s specific areas of expertise, and she has been appointed to lead the Committee’s work on the review.
UN Photo (Jean Marc Ferré)