People

Brigitte Dufour  

Director 

Brigitte Dufour is the Director of International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR). She oversees the management of the organisation, represents the organisation in international fora, and is actively involved in developing projects in partnership with other human rights NGOs. Based in Brussels, she is ideally located to carry out advocacy mandates before EU institutions.

A human rights lawyer, Brigitte holds diplomas in Law and in Linguistics and Russian Studies from the University of Montréal (Canada). She is a member of the Québec Bar (Canada). She began her legal career in the field of intellectual property and soon moved to international human rights law, an interest she developed during study visits in countries of the former Soviet bloc. Through her work for the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) where she became the deputy executive director, she has led several international human rights projects and carried out numerous missions in the field, observing closely human rights developments and worked together with local human rights advocates on various  key issues in Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Brigitte possesses extensive experience in international advocacy, having represented human rights groups before UN bodies, the Council of Europe, European Union institutions and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). She has contributed to numerous human rights publications.

Paula Tscherne-Lempiäinen is responsible for developing the program of the organisation, overseeing various administrative and planning tasks while also providing consultation services to NGOs.

Paula holds a master's degree in Comparative Religion from Helsinki University, with Islam as the field of specialization, but has spent her working life of over two decades dealing with a wide range of human rights issues. She started human rights work in the Finnish Section of Amnesty International, where she was in charge of inter alia policy issues, working techniques and prisoner work. After moving to the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF, Vienna), she conducted research and wrote on human rights violations in various OSCE participating States and, in close co-operation with local human rights groups, wrote and edited human rights news for publication. Later as the Chief Editor of the organisation, she was responsible for publishing  activities, in particular of the IHF annual report on "Human Rights in the OSCE Region" and numerous documents submitted to intergovernmental organisations. She also has experience in publicity work, programme planning and evaluation of activities.

Ann-Sofie Nyman

Research and Project Development Consultant

 Ann-Sofie Nyman works on developing projects and publications in cooperation with local human rights groups, and also participates in internal planning and strategy development.

Ann-Sofie earned master's degrees in Political Science from Abo Akademi University (Finland) and in Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, US). As part of these degrees, she studied human rights and completed a program in Russian and East European Studies. After internships among others at the European Parliament and with a Finnish child-rights NGO, she worked as researcher for the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) for more than four years. She researched and wrote several reports on current human rights issues for the IHF, edited various publications of the organisation and took an active part in the preparation of its annual reports on human rights in Europe, North America and Central Asia. She was also involved in project development, implementation and evaluation.

Marie-Hélène Côté

Board Member and Legal Counsel

Marie-Hélène Côté is an IPHR board member and the organisation's secretary/treasurer. She is responsible for legal affairs, as well as overseeing management, bookkeeping and financial affairs. She is also involved in monitoring human rights issues in Central and Eastern Europe.

Marie-Hélène holds diplomas in Urban Planning (B.sc.) and in Law (B.C.L. from McGill University and LL.M from the University of Montréal). She is qualified in Canada (Québec), as well as an English solicitor. After her studies, she spent a year in Ottawa as a law clerk for a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. She has over ten years of legal private practice experience in both North America and Europe, specialising in litigation, commercial law, and information technology and intellectual property law. Her experience includes work on setting up and managing NGOs. She is currently a lecturer at Comenius University's law faculty in Bratislava, where she has been living since 1999. Other professional experiences include editor for a legal database and legal counsel for a broadcasting and media company. Marie-Hélène is author and co-author of various publications (on legal and other topics).

Josée-Anne Simard

Consultant in Geneva

After her studies in Montréal she worked in private practice, then as a staff lawyer for the Quebec Bar for seven years where she was Permanent Secretary for many Standing Committees in Criminal Law, Civil Law and Administrative Law. She lived in the United States, then moved to Geneva where she has been living since 1996. For over ten years, she was also involved with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum.

Herwig Schinnerl (IPHR intern from September 2008 through March 2009) holds a master's degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Vienna, where he specialised in human rights, migration and conflict studies. His interest in human rights work stems from an internship at the UNHCR. He then worked with the International Organisation for Migration, the Society for Threatened Peoples and a Spanish NGO. He focussed his academic work on Russia and the Northern Caucasus. He is co-author of the anthology "From terror to freedom? Chechnya and Chechens in Austria", scheduled for publication in 2009.

Amandine Englebert (IPHR intern from January through March 2009) holds a licence in Law from the University of Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) and completed her degree at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina). During the course of her studies, she focused her academic work on the international protection of human rights. She also specialized in international criminal law, an interest she developed by participating in a simulated trial under international humanitarian law organised by the Belgian Red Cross.

Serap Saridas (IPHR intern from September through December 2008) holds a bachelor's degree in Law from Marmara University, Istanbul. During the course of her studies, she gained practical experience working as an intern for different law firms. She also completed a comparative law certificate at Birkbeck College, University of London, and holds a master's degree in European Law from Stockholm University. Serap is a human rights activist and a member of the Human Rights Association of Turkey and would like to specialize in minority and women's rights.