Former REDRESS director to lead new era for Essex's Human Rights Centre

Professor Carla Ferstman has been appointed the new director of Essex’s Human Rights Centre.

Professor Ferstman succeeds Interim Director Judith Bueno de Mesquita and becomes the latest in a long line of renowned human rights lawyers and academics to lead the centre.

“The Human Rights Centre is a path-breaking and multidisciplinary community of students, researchers and practitioners dedicated to tackling the most pressing human rights challenges of our times,”

Professor Ferstman said. “It is an honour and a privilege for me to take on the directorship, and my aim is to ensure the Centre remains dynamic, relevant and effective in all that is does.”

Professor Ferstman has worked in the human rights field for much of her career, working for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Rwanda and the International Secretariat of Amnesty International.

She also spent 14 years as director of REDRESS before joining Essex in 2018.

During her tenure at REDRESS, Professor Ferstman helped the charity, which secures justice for survivors of torture, win a coveted MacArthur Foundation Award for Creative and Effective Institutions.

Looking ahead to her term as director of the Human Right Centre, Professor Ferstman said: “My key goals are to foster the Centre’s capacity to pursue cutting-edge research, to expand our practice-based "experiential" learning programmes and to invigorate our partnerships with global policymakers and civil society.

“Some of the cross-cutting themes I hope the Centre can pursue are interrogating the double-standards associated with how governments and others give effect to human rights and account for wrongdoing and exploring the potential of people-led solidarity movements to galvanise the human rights movement”

Judith Bueno de Mesquita, who has been the interim director of the centre since Dr Andrew Fagan stepped down earlier this year, said: “Carla brings great depth and breadth of experience in human rights scholarship and practice to the helm of the HRC.

“This is a truly exciting time for the Centre, and I look forward to its progression under her leadership.”

She added: “Alongside continued leading contributions in fields such as detention, armed conflict, business and human rights, public health, drug policy, big data and technology, transitional justice, and freedom of religion, the Centre’s research, practice and teaching has successfully evolved to embrace research, teaching and practice on localising human rights, the environment, the arts and the media.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our talented and committed colleagues in the HRC community. I’d also like to thank Dr Fagan for his leadership of the Centre – his commitments to issues such as interdisciplinarity and social justice shine through all that the HRC does.”