Advisory Board

Abdullahi A. An-Na’im

He is well recognized as the world leading Muslim scholar in the field of international law of human rights and Muslim world and human rights in cross-cultural perspective. Also, he is known for his staunch advocacy on the acceptance of a progressive perspective toward Islamic teaching. He is hailed by Professor Rhoda E. Howard-Hassman,  as “extremely distinguished legal scholar of Muslim Sudanese Background.” Currently he hold Charles Howard Chandler Professor of Law at Emory University. He was the Executive Director of the African Division of  Human Rights Watch.  His current project “under the working title, The Future of Shari’a, focuses on the struggle of Islamic societies to define themselves and positively relate to the local and global conditions under which they live. A key aspect of this process is the constitutional and legal dimensions of the post-colonial experiences of Islamic societies, especially the relationship among Islam, state and society.”

Jagdish N. Bhagwati

He is University Professor, Economics and Law, at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. Although he is regarded as one of the foremost international trade economists of his generation, Professor Bhagwati has made many significant contributions to the field of migration and immigration policy over the last three decades, extending his scholarly research and public policy writings to virtually all questions raised by international migration. He has notably used insights from economics, ethics and politics in addressing these issues.

Professor Bhagwati has pioneered the analysis of the growing phenomenon of international personal mobility and the problems it creates for the design of a country’s tax system. Professor Bhagwati’s proposal to extend the source-country income tax to skilled migrants abroad gained significant scholarly, media and public-policy attention in the 1970′s. The proposal was endorsed by the Nobel Laureate Jan Tinbergen, discussed at UNCTAD and was the central subject of a profile of Professor Bhagwati in The Guardian (UK).This issue is taken up extensively in several of his books: two on Taxing the Brain Drain, North Holland, 1976 International Factor Mobility, MIT Press (1983) and International Migration and Income Taxation, MIT Press (1991), jointly edited with John Wilson. This so-called “Bhagwati Tax” proposal has been revived in recent years and is currently being discussed by scholars, NGO’s and policymakers.

Professor Bhagwati also edited two symposia on this and related immigration questions in the Journal of Public Economics as well as the Journal of Developmental Economics in the late 1970′s.

Among his works on public policy, which have been published recently by MIT press in two successive volumes, are: A Stream of Windows: Unsettling Reflections on Trade, Immigration, and Democracy (1998), and The Wind of the Hundred Days, How Washington Mismanaged Globalization (2000). Both books have contributions to the subject matter of immigration, including challenges.

Professor Bhagwati has also written frequently for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs and The New Republic on immigration issues. A recent piece discussing the current administration’s management of immigration policies is: Bush trades his principles, Financial Times, April 2002.

His latest article on immigration was published in the Jan/Feb 2003 Davos Issue of Foreign Affairs, titled Borders Beyond Control. Professor Bhagwati highlights the need for a shift of immigration policy away from attempts at curbing migration to coping with it. In 2010, Professor Bhagwati (with Gordon Hanson) co-edited Skilled Immigration Today: Prospect, Problems and Policy which is published by Oxford University Press.

Professor Bhagwati is currently Director of the Program on International Migration: Economics, Ethics and Law at the Columbia University Law School, and is engaged in several books and projects on the subject of international migration also at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Hilary Charlesworth

She is highly praised as one of the world’s leading critical scholar and pioneer of feminist scholarship in international law. At present, she is Australian Research Council Federation Fellow, Professor in RegNet and Director of the Centre for International Governance and Justice, ANU. She also holds an appointment as Professor of International Law and Human Rights at Australian National University, Director of Centre for Global and International Justice and has held the position of Visiting Professor in many prominent universities, including, Harvard, NYU, and UCLA.

She has worked with various non-governmental human rights organisations on ways to implement international human rights standards and was chair of the ACT Government’s inquiry into an ACT bill of rights, which culminated in the adoption of the ACT Human Rights Act 2004.

Tom Ginsburg

Tom Ginsburg is the Leo Spitz Professor of International Law at the University of Chicago, where he also holds an appointment in the Political Science Department.  He holds B.A., J.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. He currently co-directs the Comparative Constitutions Project, an NSF-funded data set cataloging the world’s constitutions since 1789.  His recent co-authored book, The Endurance of National Constitutions (2009), won the best book award from Comparative Democratization Section of American Political Science Association.  His other books include Judicial Review in New Democracies (2003), Administrative Law and Governance in Asia (2008), Rule By Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes (with Tamir Moustafa, 2008), and Comparative Constitutional Law (with Rosalind Dixon, 2011).   Before entering law teaching, he served as a legal advisor at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, The Hague, Netherlands, and he has consulted with numerous international development agencies and governments on legal and constitutional reform.

Rhoda E. Howard-Hassman

Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann is Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, where she holds a joint appointment in the Department of Global Studies and the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, and Professor Emerita at McMaster University. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from McGill University (1976), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2006 she was named the first Distinguished Scholar of Human Rights by the Human Rights Section, American Political Science Association. She originated and directed McMaster’s now defunct undergraduate minor Theme School on International Justice and Human Rights (1993-99).

Dr. Howard-Hassmann is the author of Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Ghana (1978), Human Rights in Commonwealth Africa (1986), Human Rights and the Search for Community (1995),Compassionate Canadians: Civic Leaders Discuss Human Rights (2003), Reparations to Africa(2008), and Advancing Human Rights through Globalization?(forthcoming 2010). She is also co-editor of an International Handbook of Human Rights (1987); Economic Rights in Canada and the United States (2006); and The Age of Apology: Facing up to the Past (2007). Compassionate Canadians was named 2004 Outstanding Book in Human Rights by the Human Rights Section, American Political Science Association; Economic Rights in Canada and the United States was named a notable book for 2008 by the United States Human Rights Network, a coalition of 200 non-governmental organizations. Dr. Howard-Hassmann has also published numerous articles and book chapters on human rights and development in Africa; women’s rights; gay and lesbian rights; Canadian foreign and refugee policy; and theoretical, methodological and sociological issues in international and Canadian human rights. Her current research interests include human security and state-induced famine, for example in Zimbabwe.

Robyn Iredale

Robyn Iredale taught in NSW high schools in 1967-68, trained teachers from 1973 to 1979 and conducted research and taught in universities till 2005. Since then she has been a private consultant and attached to the ANU, as an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute.

She has been conducting research on migration, education and training and the labour market since 1979: on both skilled and less skilled labour migration, skills accreditation and recognition, refugee flows, women in migration, training and many other topics. She has extensive experience in designing and conducting projects and workshops. She has been commissioned to carry out work for ASEAN Secretariat, UNCTAD, UNDP, ILO, IOM, UNESCO, APEC, DFAT, AusAID, etc. She has also conducted a range of training workshops in Australia and overseas. She brings a strong human rights and gender focus to all her work.

In her role as Executive Director of the Asia Pacific Migration Research Network (APMRN) for seven years, funded by UNESCO and the International Organization for Migration, she had daily contact with people in the region. She was a member of the National Population Council (NPC) in Australia from 1987-1993 and was on the NPC’s Working Party to report on the recognition of o/s qualifications in 1988. She was part of the NSW Inquiry into the Recognition of O/S Qualifications in 1988-89.

Beth Lyon (Chairwoman)

Her activism and publications on the rights of migrant has established her as one of the leading authorities in the field. She is currently Associate Professor of Law at Villanova University School of Law, Founding Director of Farmworkers Legal Aid Clinic, co-directed the Spanish Internship Program and former President Director of the Board of Directors of Global Justice Workers Alliance, New York. She has written extensively on domestic and international immigrant and farm worker rights, and generally about the human rights of the poor. Her publications are widely cited in academic and practitioner publications, and she has been quoted in various news media outlets. Most recently, Professor Lyon’s suggested terminology for unauthorized immigrant workers was cited and adopted in 2006 articles in The Tax Lawyer and the Harvard Latino Law Review. Last fall, the Chicago Lawyer quoted her article on the rights of Illinois farm workers.

Nicola Piper

Nicola Piper is Senior Research Fellow at the Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institut in Freiburg, Germany, formerly Associate Director of the Centre for Migration Policy Research at Swansea University (UK). She has published extensively on gendered migration, migrant rights and global governance of migration and carried out consultancies for various UN agencies, INGOs and global trade unions. Among her latest publications are the edited volumes New Perspectives on Gender and Migration: Livelihoods, Rights, and Entitlements (Routledge, 2008), South-South Migration: Implications for Social Policy and Development (with Katja Hujo, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and the co-authored book Critical Perspectives on Global Governance: Rights and Regulation in Governing Regimes (with Jean Grugel, Routledge, 2007).

David Weissbrodt

Mr. Weissbrodt is the Regents Professor and Fredrikson & Byron Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School.  He is a world-renowned scholar in international human rights law and teaches international human rights law, administrative law, immigration law, and torts.  Professor Weissbrodt has established the University of Minnesota Human Rights Center and helped to launch the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library on the Internet.

In 1996 Weissbrodt was elected and in 2000 he was re-elected by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to serve as a member of the U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.  In 2001-02, Professor Weissbrodt became the first United States citizen to serve as chairperson of the U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. He was designated the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the rights of non-citizens from 2000-03.  He is the author of more than 200 articles, books, and monographs including The Human Rights of Non-Citizens (Oxford Univ. Press 2008).

Chairul Zen

Former Staff of Expert of the Minister of Communication and Informatics and Former President Director of Televisi Republik Indonesia (TVRI) and founder of Tiara Kencana, Broadcasting School in Jakarta.

Board of Directors

Yessy Febrianti (Executive Director)

Her previous experience as member in some Executive Boards in many feminist student organizations and works as general manager in a multinational corporation (1997 – ) has contributed to the maintenance of the Institute as the women-centered initiative. She also had trained many newly created not-for-profit initiatives in the practice of the transparency and accountability management.

Arthur Hermanto (Program Director)

Despite his activities as a professional photographer, he is a lifelong chinese activist for the rights of religious minorities and non-theistic believers in Indonesia and former unauthorized migrant worker in Hong Kong (2003 – 2004) and South Korea (2005 – 2007).

Pranoto Iskandar (Development Director)

He has pioneering and written extensively on the relevance of international law for the benefit of the development of the democratic Indonesian domestic legal system. Among many others, his award winning Hukum HAM International or International Human Rights Law, which is currently in its second edition, is not the only book available on the subject in Indonesia but also, as Professor An-Na’im acclaimed, has “comprehensive scope and strong scholarship.” Most importantly, his many scholarly contributions has generated some encouraging impacts in cementing the emerging interest in the domestication of human rights norms nationwide. His recent initiative which is called IMR Studies on International & Comparative Law is considered by many leading authorities in the field as “the foremost contributions in bringing back of the Indonesian legal scholarship from the dead” as evidenced from its high quality publications. His current project is developing the theoretical foundation that would smoothen the introduction of liberal democracy in Indonesia. The project is ambitiously providing the case for the integration of international and comparative law as part of the national legal system which he believes would furthering the central objective of international law in furthering of its humanizing impacts. Moreover, this trailblazer project is believed by many as a breakthrough in Indonesian thinking as well as activism on democracy and human rights that traditionally trapped in communitarian delusion.

Financial Department

Melyani Setyananda (Chief Financial Officer)

After graduating from Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Ekonomi Universitas Trisakti (2003), she works as Tax Consultant and co-founders of Olimo Tax Consultant, Jakarta (2005). Previously, she teaches at Sekolah Menengah Umum Dharma Satria, Jakarta (2004 – 2005).

Iman Lukman (Bookkeeper)

He previously worked as an assistant of chief financial officer in Sudirman & Rekan in Cianjur (2005 – 2007).

Research Program

Saru Arifin

He is a lecturer in law at Universitas Negeri Semarang (Unnes), Jawa Tengah, and has conducted many field research and published his articles in many leading national journals on various legal issues. He earned his Master of Law (LLM) in International Law from Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta. In addition, he formerly appointed as Senior Researcher of UII’s Research and Development Directorate (2003-9).

Susi Fauziah

Her early interest in the feminist tradition in English literatures has introduced her to join the initiative. Currently, she is a graduate student at Universitas Indonesia (2009 – ) and Tutor on English Literature at Universitas Indonesia (2006 – ) and other major private universities in Jakarta.

Ratno Lukito (Head Department)

He is Professor of Comparative Law and Shari’a at Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta (1991 – ) and Former President of the Indonesian Student Association in Canada (2005 – 2006). He received his Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) as well as his MA from McGill University. He also teaches at other universities, including post-graduate program in Universitas Gadjah Mada (2007 – ) and Universitas Muhamadiyah Yogyakarta (2007 – 2009). His works have been published widely by some notable publication houses, including Oxford University Press, ISEAS, Routledge, and other learned international journals. At present, he is the editor in chief of Al-Jami’ah: International Journal of Islamic Studies (2007 – ) and Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Van Vollenhoven Institute, Faculty of Law, Leiden University, the Netherlands, SPIN-KNAW Postdoctoral Program, the Netherlands (2009 – 2011). His latest work is Legal Pluralism in Indonesia: Bridging Unbridgeable which is published by Routledge (2011). In addition, he also Director of LibForAll Foundation for Southeast Asia which is co-founded by many distinguished figures such as, HE KH Abdurrahman Wahid, former President of the Republic of Indonesia, Ahmad Syafii Maarif, former Chairman of Muhammadiyah, Dr. Nasr Abu Zayd, world’s renowned Egyptian Scholar in Islamic hermeneutics, and C. Holland Taylor, international expert on Islam in Southeast Asia. a non-governmental initiative that strive to promote the liberal values of Islamic teaching.

Nandang Sutrisno

He is a Senior Lecturer on International Law and Vice President and former Vice Dean at UII School of Law and earned his Doctor of Philoshopy (Ph.D) on International Economic Law at the Law School of the University of Melbourne (2005) and Master of Law (LLM) from McGill University. He specializes in the area of international economic law and international development. His two most recent publications are Using World Trade Law to Promote the Interests of Global South: A Study on the Effectiveness of S&D Treatments which is published by IMR Press (2009) and “Substantive Justice Formulated, Implemented as Formal and Procedural Justice: A Lesson from WTO Special and Differential Treatment Provisions for Developing Countries,” 13 J. Gender, Race & Justice 671(2011).

International Legal Clinic Aid

Yudi Junadi (Head Department)

Dr. Yudi Junadi is a dedicated activist and advocate in the promotion and advocacy of the human rights of the poor. He is well-recognized for his prominent role in the advancement of the right of the deprived to access justice. His contributing role is important in the establishment of the first legal aid clinics in Indonesia. He has extensive practical experiences in the field of human rights advocacy, including on the issues of religious freedom and the right to self-determination in East Timore. In addition, he was formerly the chairman of the Electoral Commission for Cianjur District, West Java – Indonesia <see insideindonesia>.

Sudirman

He is reputed as Cianjur’s senior legal practitioner who specializes in Indonesian migration law and Founder and Managing Partner at Sudirman & Rekan, Cianjur and the distinguished member of Advisory Board of Regional Branch of Ikatan Advokat Indonesia (Ikadin) in Cianjur (2009 – 2014).

Bambang Suryowidodo

He is senior legal practitioner on labor law and Founder and Partner at MAAS Law Office, Jakarta (2004 – ). He is also a leading consultant on intellectual property law, member of Asosiasi Kurator dan Penerima Indonesia (AKPI) (2000 – ), and member of Perhimpunan Advokat Indonesia (Peradi) (2000 – ).

Eka An Aqimuddin

Eka is an international law lecturer at Universitas Islam Bandung (UNISBA), West Java. He holds LLB from Universitas Trisakti, Jakarta, and LLM from Universitas Padjajaran, Bandung. He is a co-author of a book on the legal system of ASEAN and has written op-ed on localizing international law in Indonesia at the Jakarta Post and many other local newspapers. He also regularly wrote in his own blog that can be found here.

Public Affairs

Ari Fakhridin (Head Department)

His academic background in Islamic traditional education and his profession as teacher of Islamic education at State Junior High School 4, Cianjur (2005 – ) has prompted him to further the initiative in reaching the wider traditional audience. He was formerly the Secretary General of Lajnah Falakiyah (2004 – 2006) and President of the Cianjur Regional Branch of the Youth of Nadhlatul Ulama (2001 – 2005).

Publication Department

Asep M. Zaelani

He is a graduate of Universitas Islam Bandung (2002) and founder of Genbi, a local publishing consultant (2005).

Library and Documentation

Dody S. Abdullah

He was formerly a librarian of a student library in a private university in Cianjur (2006 – 2007).

Volunteers U. Iwan, Yoki Ferdian, and Ivan Lutfi Azis.