Our Governing Council
‘The Governing Council of AFLA is the face of courage and devotion to human rights protection. Each one of the members of the Governing Council is a human rights luminary. AFLA’s impressive accomplishments have been guided by this illustrious body. It has given AFLA intellectual direction and international visibility.’
- Report of External Facilitator, AFLA Strategic Review
Moray Hathorn (South Africa) – Chair
Moray Hathorn is a former partner of Webber Wentzel law firm and an attorney at the Legal Resources Centre. He is an expert in dealing with civil and socio-economic rights issues. He has extensive experience in land reform practice, the law relating to traditional authorities, the right to housing and gender equality and assisting non-profit organisations.
Hathorn’s expertise extends to administrative and constitutional law. He has been involved in litigation in the Magistrate’s Courts, the Labour Court and Land Claims Court, the High Court and Constitutional Court and in negotiations with government at the municipal, provincial and central levels, as well as at the ministerial level. In matters of international criminal justice, he has been involved in the Al-Bashir appeal case in South Africa. He has also participated in the formulation and drafting of aspects of the new land reform legislation.
He spent 15 years working at the Legal Resource Centre dealing with various matters related to human rights and land reform. Hathorn is a notary public and conveyancer. He was also Director of the Rural Housing Loan Fund from May 1998 to 2012 (a not-for-profit company, incorporated for the purpose of provision of wholesale finance to lenders for low-income rural housing). He is a director of the Treatment Action Campaign and a council member of Sedibeng College.
Hathorn has a BA and LLB degrees from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He has various academic publications and was a founding member of ProBono.org, the first public interest law clearing housing established in South Africa.
Dr Edward Kwakwa (Ghana) – Treasurer
Dr Edward Kwakwa is Assistant Director General at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva, where he has held the position of Senior Director at the Department of Traditional Knowledge and Legal Counsel.
Before joining WIPO, Dr Kwakwa practised corporate and international trade law and investment with the law firm of O’Melveny and Myers in Washington, D.C., worked as International Legal Adviser at the Commission on Global Governance in Geneva, as Senior Legal Adviser at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and as Legal Affairs Officer at the World Trade Organisation.
Dr Kwakwa holds an LL.B degree from the University of Ghana, an LL.M. from Queen’s University in Canada, and an LL.M. and a J.S.D. from Yale University in the U.S.A.
Judge Fatoumata Dembélé Diarra (Mali)
Judge Fatoumata Dembélé Diarra was elected to the first bench of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for a nine-year term from 2003 to 2012, continuing until 2014 to conclude the cases before her. Judge Diarra scored the highest number of votes with Ireland’s Maureen Harding Clark and was elected in the first round. In 2009 she was elected to the position of First Vice-President by her peers and served in that capacity until the end of her mandate at the ICC in 2012. Judge Diarra was Judge ad litem at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) from 2001 to 2003.
Judge Fatoumata Dembélé Diarra is the President of the Council of the Université des Sciences Juridiques et Politiques de Bamako. Prior to her current position, she was a Member of the Constitutional Court of Mali. Positions she has held in Mali include National Director of the Justice Department, President of the Criminal Chamber of Bamako Appeals Court, President of the Assize Court, as well as an Examining Magistrate and Deputy Public Prosecutor.
Judge Diarra’s dedication to justice extends beyond the courtroom, and she is the President and founder of the Pro Bono Center for Women and Children in Mali. Her civil society positions have included those of Vice-President of the International Federation of Women in Legal Careers (IFWLC), Vice-President of the African Women Jurists' Federation, President of the Association des Juristes Maliennes (the Malian Women Jurists' Association) and President of the Observatoire des Droits de la Femme et de l'Enfant (Women's and Children's Rights Monitoring Body). Judge Diarra is on the Advisory Council of the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, a project of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law, St. Louis.
Judge Diarra is a graduate of the École Nationale de la Magistrature de Paris. She holds a LL.M. from the Mali École Nationale d’Administration. She is an alumna of the Arizona State University, where she studied in the American English and Culture Program.
Mylène Dimitri (Egypt/Canada)
Mylène Dimitri has over two decades of experience as a lawyer appearing before international courts and tribunals. She is currently a lead defence counsel before the International Criminal Court.
She has previously worked for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
Mylène Dimitri was defence counsel in a ground-breaking universal jurisdiction trial in Canada, and has conducted specialised training for Ukranian lawyers, as well as served as a legal consultant in criminal trials.
She has guest lectured at academic institutions including The Hague University of Applied Sciences, Birmingham University, the National Judicial Institute in Québec and the Nuremberg Academy.
A humanitarian at heart, Dimitri established a classroom at a school in Tanzania and a maternity ward at a hospital in Kenya.
Evelyn A Ankumah (Ghana/The Netherlands) – Executive Director
Evelyn A Ankumah is the founder and executive director of Africa Legal Aid (AFLA). She is a lawyer and an author, with practical and academic legal experience in Africa, Europe and North America.
A specialist in human rights and international criminal justice, Ankumah has pioneered initiatives on marginalised and under-treated areas of rights and accountability. She is the convener of the Review of the Kampala Amendments on the Crime of Aggression: Mobilising African States Parties to Raise Awareness and Generate Ownership to Advocate for a Crime of Aggression Regime that is Both Fair and Legitimate.
She conceived, and coordinates the gender-sensitive judging training programme for judges of international courts and tribunals.
Ankumah penned the first monograph on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Originally published in English by Kluwer Law International, the book was subsequently translated into French and Arabic.
Evelyn Ankumah initiated the 'Cairo-Arusha Principles on Universal Jurisdiction in Respect of Gross Human Rights Offences: An African Perspective.' The Cairo-Arusha Principles have been coined 'The voice of Africa on universal jurisdiction.'
Evelyn Ankumah is an expert on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). ICC victims and defence lawyers have credited Ankumah for having provided a voice, and platform for victims and defence counsels, which, it is acknowledged, was the driving force behind the creation of the International Criminal Court Bar Association (ICCBA).
Evelyn A Ankumah is the editor of AFLA publications including four books and over forty-five editions of the Africa Legal Aid (AFLA) Quarterly journal.
In 2020, Evelyn A Ankumah was inducted into the International Gender Champions (IGC) network, a leadership network of female and male decision-makers determined to break down gender barriers.
In 2014, Ankumah was selected by the UK-based Power List Magazine as one of 25 Africans who have most significantly contributed to improving the African continent.
Ankumah served on the board of the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) for seven years.
Evelyn A Ankumah is the Host of Hague Girls - The Podcast, sharing women’s experiences and women’s perspectives on human rights and international justice.
Evelyn Ankumah holds a Juris Doctor (JD) degree from William Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, and was admitted to the bar of the state and federal courts of Minnesota. She obtained an Advanced Diploma for Human Rights Researchers and Lecturers from the International Institute of Human Rights, Strasbourg. For three years, Ankumah was Visiting Research Scholar at the Department of International and European Law, Maastricht University, the Netherlands, where she wrote the first book on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.