Document ActionsOur BoardBoard Member Profiles The Fund for Global Human Rights is governed and advised by a distinguished, international board of directors. The board is comprised of international human rights experts, funders, and activists from the regions where the Fund operates. Mary Robinson, former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and former President of Ireland, serves as Honorary Chair. Mary Robinson has served in numerous positions from which she has worked to protect human rights. As President of Ireland from 1990-1997, she emphasized the needs of developing countries by drawing connections between the needs of today and the needs of countries in the past, such as with the Great Irish Famine. After her Presidency, Ms. Robinson took the position of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. During her term, she focused on implementing Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s reform proposal to integrate human rights concerns in all the activities of the United Nations. Ms. Robinson founded in 2002 and currently serves as president of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, an organization committed to multi-disciplinary thought and action aimed at integrating human rights standards into global governance and policy-making in order to serve as a bridge between the needs of the poorest communities and the global stage. Educated at Trinity College, Ms. Robinson also holds law degrees from the King's Inns in Dublin and from Harvard University. In addition to chairing the Fund for Global Human Rights, Ms. Robinson serves as Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders, Vice President of the Club of Madrid, honorary President of Oxfam International, Member of the Vaccine Fund Board of Directors and member of the Leadership Council the UN Global Coalition on Women and AIDS. She is a Professor of Practice at Columbia University and member of the Advisory Board of the Earth Institute, and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria.
Hina Jilani has been at the forefront of the movement for peace, human rights and women’s rights in Pakistan for the last two decades. A founding member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Jilani currently serves as the Commission’s vice president. She is an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and has steadfastly represented those whose human rights have been violated, including victims of domestic violence, fundamentalist violence, and so-called “honor killings,” as well as bonded workers. In 2001, Ms. Jilani was appointed Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders. In that same year, she was also awarded the Millennium Peace Prize, the first award of its kind to recognize women who have made outstanding contributions to building peace.
Mary Ann Stein is the President of the Moriah Fund, a private foundation seeking to promote human rights and democracy, help disadvantaged people gain self-sufficiency and control over their lives, foster sustainable development, promote women’s rights and reproductive health and protect and preserve the environment. In addition to the Fund for Global Human Rights, Ms. Stein serves on the boards of Americans for Peace Now and the New Israel Fund. A graduate of Wellesley College and George Washington University Law Center, Ms. Stein has chaired several committees, coalitions, and mayoral advisory commissions on family and children’s issues. She served on the D.C. Judicial Nominations Commission and has written and published papers on public assistance and child welfare.
Currently an Associate Professor at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (Center for Research and Teaching in the Social Sciences), Mariclaire Acosta has also served as Americas director at the International Center for Transitional Justice, special adviser to the secretary general of the OAS on civil society affairs and as deputy secretary for human rights and democracy at the Mexico Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before that she served as special ambassador for human rights and democracy at the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as adviser to the Social Convergence Working Group for Civil Organizations, Political Coordinating Office and Transition team for President Vicente Fox. Her involvement with human rights encompasses a wide spectrum of non-profit, public, and private activities. Ms. Acosta is a founding member and former president of the Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promocion de los Derechos Humanos (Non-profit Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights), a founding member and former executive director of the Academia Mexicana de Derechos Humanos (Mexican Human Rights Academy), and served as chairperson of the Mexican section of Amnesty International.
Mr. Ahmed manages an emerging and frontier markets focused fund of managers for institutional investors. Most recently he was a Managing Director with the Brown University Investment Office. Prior to that Mr. Ahmed was a Senior Vice President with Calvert Asset Management. Before Calvert, he served eight years with the World Bank Group as a Senior Investment Officer in the World Bank’s Treasury Department and in the International Finance Corporation’s Central Capital Markets Department. Mr. Ahmed started his career in international banking with a predecessor of Bank of America. He holds an MA, with distinctions, from the Johns Hopkins University and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is a past Board member of the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union. Akwasi Aidoo has extensive experience in philanthropy in Africa. He is the founding Executive Director of TrustAfrica, a foundation dedicated to security democracy, human rights and equitable development in Africa. His previous positions include regional program officer for West and Central Africa at International Development center (IDRC), head of the Ford Foundation’s offices in Senegal and Nigeria, and director of the Ford Foundation’s Special Initiative for Africa. Mr. Aidoo serves as a director on boards of several nonprofit organizations, including Resource Alliance, International Beliefs and Values Institute, International Committee of the Council on Foundations, the Africa Grantmakers' Affinity Group, West Africa Rural Foundation, and Amandla Development. He has taught at universities in Ghana, Tanzania, and the United States. Mr. Aidoo was educated in Ghana and the United States and received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Connecticut in 1985. He writes poetry and short stories in his spare time.
Philip Alston co-chairs the NYU Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, a post which he has held since 2004. His most recent official missions have been Colombia, Kenya, the United States, Afghanistan, and Brazil. He was a member of the Group of Experts on Darfur appointed in 2007 by the UN Human Rights Council. Mr. Alston has been Special Adviser to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Millennium Development Goals since 2002. He chaired the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights for eight years until 1998, and at the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights he was elected to chair the first meeting of the Presidents and Chairs of all of the international human rights courts and committees (including the European and American Human Rights Courts and the African Commission). Mr. Alston was UNICEF's legal adviser throughout the period of the drafting of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and directed a major project funded by the European Commission, which resulted in the publication of a Human Rights Agenda for the European Union for the Year 2000 and a volume of essays on that theme.
Hossam Bahgat is the founder and director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a Cairo-based independent human rights organization which seeks to protect and promote the personal rights and freedoms of individuals and communities. Since 2002, the EIPR has used research, advocacy and litigation to promote and defend the rights to privacy, religious freedom, health, and bodily integrity. With training in political science and international human rights law, Mr. Bahgat is also the vice president of the Egyptian Association against Torture, an Advisory Board member of Egypt's New Woman Foundation and a Board member of the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Holly Cartner, Director, Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch As the Director of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch, Ms. Cartner is responsible for overseeing research and advocacy work in over 25 countries in Europe and Central Asia. Ms. Cartner has written extensively on issues of human rights abuses against the Roma minority in Romania and Bulgaria, as well as on xenophobic violence in Germany. During her career, Ms. Cartner has also worked as a consultant to various international institutions including the Open Society Institute and the International Helsinki Federation. In addition to the Fund for Global Human Rights, Ms. Cartner serves on the boards of the International Helsinki Federation, the Russia Chechnya Justice Initiative, and Sub-board on Human Rights and Law of the Open Society Institute. Ms. Cartner earned her Bachelors degree from the University of North Carolina, as well as her Master's degree in political science and her law degree from Columbia University in New York where she also received a Parker School Certificate in Recognition of Achievement in International Law.
Helen Mack Chang is the founder of Guatemala's Myrna Mack Foundation, which she formed to seek justice for the brutal murder of her sister Myrna Mack and for the thousands of other citizens who lost their lives at the hands of the military during Guatemala’s brutal civil war. Since the Myrna Mack Foundation's establishment in 1993, Ms. Mack has succeeded in making significant progress in the fight for human rights, reform of the judiciary system and fortification of the rule of law. In addition, she obtained the conviction of one of the three officers accused of masterminding Myrna Mack's murder. Prior to Myrna's case, few dared attempt to bring rights violators to justice in Guatemala's courts. By taking the case to court, Ms. Mack challenged entrenched impunity and State-sponsored terror campaigns. It was the first human rights case during the civil war to go before Guatemala's courts, and it opened a path for other cases. Ms. Mack is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades including the Swedish Parliament's Right Livelihood Award, known as an "alternative Nobel Prize." Mr. Mailman has helped start several grantmaking foundations and philanthropic business initiatives since the early 1980s, including the Threshold Foundation and the Social Venture Network, which brings together private investors, company founders and social entrepreneurs with a shared commitment to create a more just and sustainable society through business. He co-founded Business for Social Responsibility in 1992, now one of the largest national organizations focused on promoting business and social responsibility simultaneously. Mr. Mailman is a trustee of the Sigrid Rausing Trust, an advisor to the Rudolf Steiner Foundation, and a board member of the Mailman Foundation. In addition to the Fund, Mr. Mailman serves on the boards of Witness, Sierra Madre Alliance, Blacksmith Institute, Afropop Worldwide, and the Environmental Defenders Law Center.
Mr. Odinkalu has worked extensively with groups based in Africa. He is the author of many reports, articles, and books on human rights issues, including Justice Denied: the Area Courts System in the Northern States of Nigeria and “Why More Africans Don’t Use Human Rights Language.” Mr. Odinkalu’s work has also focused on penal reform, refugees, and women’s rights under customary law and he emphasizes the dangers of adopting an elitist approach to human rights advocacy. He currently serves as the Senior Legal Officer for Africa at Open Society Justice Initiative, a program which pursues law reform activities grounded in the protection of human rights. Before the Open Society Justice Initiative, Mr. Odinkalu worked with and/or advised the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights in London, and the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone. Mr. Odinkalu is a former Brandeis International Fellow at the Centre for Ethics, Justice and Public Life of the Brandeis University, and Lecturer at the Harvard Law School.
Cynthia Ryan, Principal, The Schooner Foundation
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