Eleanor Thompson is a public interest lawyer and social justice advocate. She is the founder of Citizens’ Barray, a platform for empowering citizens to drive social change in their communities and beyond in Sierra Leone. She is also in private legal practice with GPKLegal, one of Sierra Leone’s top law firms. Previously, she worked alongside community-based paralegals to provide direct legal assistance to communities in Sierra Leone protect their land rights and environment. Eleanor has worked extensively on human rights, the rule of law, and justice at national, regional, and global levels for almost 20 years. She influenced positive legal reform in Sierra Leone by co-drafting Sierra Leone’s progressive, more equitable new land laws. Eleanor is passionate about supporting people to utilize their power and innovative solutions to protect their rights, hold their leaders accountable, and shape the laws that affect them.

When not using law to help people solve problems, she works with and for girls and young women, creating opportunities for them to be empowered and inspired to achieve their goals. She is an Advisory Board member for global Girls Human Rights Hub and served as the inaugural Chair of the Board of She Can.We Can., a non-profit organisation that seeks to cultivate young, innovative female leaders in Sierra Leone. Eleanor is also passionate about creating opportunities for and promoting women and girls in sports.

Eleanor holds a Bachelor’s degree in Government and African Studies from Harvard University, a Juris Doctor from American University Washington College of Law, and a Masters in International Human Rights Law with distinction from the University of Oxford. She is licensed to practice law in Sierra Leone and two U.S. jurisdictions - New York State and the District of Columbia.

Barrister at Exchange Chambers and Director of Mini Hubs Programme

Celeste is human rights lawyer and activist recently returned to practise here in the UK in family law, specifically public law children cases. She was called to the Bar in 1991 and in 2011, having reached the pinnacle of junior work in her field, decided to follow her dream to work overseas in the international human rights field. Since her return she has seamlessly picked up her practice and is a highly respected and very sought-after advocate regarded as a leader in the public law family field. She brings a wealth of experience, including experience garnered in the criminal jurisdiction augmented by her overseas experience, a feminist and human rights-based approach, intellectual rigour, and passion. Celestine serves as the Director of Young Expert Programme (YEP), leading the strategic vision and direction of the initiative. Her role encompasses the overall management and development of the program, ensuring that it aligns with its mission to empower young leaders in their fields. Celestine is dedicated to fostering a supportive and engaging environment for all participants, focusing on their growth and impact. She conducts monthly meetings with the young experts to review progress, address challenges, and strategize on achieving their objectives, providing guidance and mentorship throughout the program.

Human Rights Lawyers and Girls Human Rights Advisor

Coline is a consultant in intersectional justice at the Open Society Foundations. For the past ten years, she has engaged in advocacy, action research, and policy work, and has helped build structural legal aid projects in several countries across Asia, Europe, and North America. She previously worked and consulted for the Open Society Justice Initiative and the International Institute for Environment and Development, where she developed community-based public interest litigation and legal empowerment initiatives to strengthen protection regimes for migrants and refugees, and to seek accountability for the displacement and dispossession of Indigenous communities.

She is the co-editor of the anthology Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence (Haymarket Books, 2023) and has written on subjects such as migration, displacement, human trafficking, and international law for the Border Criminologies blog, Opinio Juris, and theAsia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law. She holds a M.St. from Oxford University and a LL.B. from Sheffield University.

Federica Tronchin is a senior programme manager with decades of experience driving change in the field of human rights, international justice, sexual and gender-based violence investigations, and child rights. She has been leading international justice work for over a decade, developing strategic partnerships with international and regional organizations, including UNICEF, UN Women and the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights.

She is currently the Head of the International Justice Programme and the Senior Gender and Child

Rights Advisor for Justice Rapid Response, an intergovernmental facility that manages the rapid deployment of criminal justice professionals from a stand-by roster. These experts, coming from every region of the world, are trained in the investigation of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and serious human rights violations. She manages her organization’s gender justice, sexual exploitation and abuse investigations, and child rights portfolios.

From 2015 to 2018 she developed a program which strengthened international and local justice processes for international core crimes and human rights law violations in Syria and Iraq. Activities

included the provision of technical assistance and training to improve the standards of documentation and investigation of crimes, with special attention to the sensitivities surrounding

SGBV and crimes against children, and a pilot program on mentoring of humanitarian responders on how their work intersects with accountability processes.

Prior to joining JRR, Federica worked for non-governmental organizations in Rome and in New York, contributing to the advocacy campaign which led to the adoption by the UN General Assembly of Resolution A/RES/62/149 calling for a moratorium on death penalty; and cooperating with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on a project on indigenous peoples’ human rights.

Her early professional experiences included providing inter-cultural integration interventions and legal support to refugees and immigrants in Italy. As a graduate student she was awarded the

Lorenzin’s Fellowship, for her research on governance and water management systems in the Saharawi refugee camps, in Tindouf, Algeria.

She holds an M.S. and a B.A. in International Relations and Diplomacy from the University of Trieste.