Human Rights Council President appoints Lynn Welchman of United Kingdom to serve on Commission of Inquiry on Syrian Arab Republic

The President of the Human Rights Council, Ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji, announced today the appointment of Lynn Welchman of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a member of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry into the Syrian Arab Republic, announced by the council in August 2011, to everyone in the country since March 2011 Investigate alleged violations of international human rights committed.

Ms. Welchman will join Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro from Brazil, chairman of the commission since September 2011, and Hanny Megally from Egypt, who has been a member of the commission since October 2017. She will replace Karen Koning AbuZayd of the United States, an original member of the three-person body who recently stepped down after ten years of service. Following Ms AbuZayd’s final remarks to the Council last September on the presentation of the Commission’s latest report, Councilors expressed their deep appreciation for her valuable contribution to the work of the United Nations’ leading human rights body over a decade.

Ms. Welchman brings extensive human rights experience to the Commission with a specialization in the Middle East and North Africa. Currently serving as a professor of law at SOAS University of London, her career at SOAS began in 1997 as a lecturer in Islamic law, where she was head of the School of Law and held a number of other senior positions. Ms. Welchman currently teaches Islamic law, gender, law and society in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as human rights and Islamic law. She designed and convened the International Human Rights Clinic, for which she was awarded the SOAS Director’s Prize for Inspirational Teaching in 2019.

After graduating from Cambridge University with Honors, Ms. Welchman worked for several local and international human rights organizations, mainly in the Middle East and North Africa, but also in Haiti and Rwanda. She is a board member of the Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Support of Human Rights Defenders and on the International Advisory Board of the MENA office of the Open Society Foundation. She is fluent in Arabic.

The commission of inquiry will present a written report to the Geneva Human Rights Council at its next meeting in March 2022.

/ Public release. This material from the originating organization (s) may be of a point nature and may be edited for clarity, style and length. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author (s). See here in full.

https://www.miragenews.com/human-rights-council-president-appoints-lynn-684783/