AIRE Centre Team Profiles

Nuala Mole
Biljana Braithwaite
Theodora Christou
Catharina Harby
Maryam Tabib
Adam Weiss
Megan Williams

Nuala Mole is the founder and Director of the AIRE Centre. She has worked for more than 25 years in the field of human rights. Initially specializing in immigration and asylum, she has broadened her work to include all aspects of international human rights law. She has written extensively on all aspects of the European Convention on Human Rights and on the free movement of persons under European Union law, with special attention to the interface between the two legal orders. She is on the Board of the European Human Rights Law Review and co-edits the Centre's monthly Bulletin of ECHR caselaw.

She has been part of the legal team in more than 70 cases before the ECtHR, the ECJ and landmark cases in the UK. She was chosen by the Council of Europe to represent human rights NGOs at the 50th anniversary of the European Convention in Rome in 2000 and was the Law Society's Human Rights Lawyer of the Year in 2001. She also received the 2005 Prix de l'Ancien - this Alumnus of the Year Prize is awarded each year to a former student of the College of Europe who has made a significant contribution to the promotion of the European ideal, the promotion of excellence, generosity, tolerance and respect for diversity, friendship and solidarity and open-mindedness.

Nuala has conducted training for the Council of Europe, the European Commission and the AIRE Centre for judges, public officials, lawyers and NGOs in 40 of the 46 member states of the Council of Europe on a wide range of topics including immigration, prisoners' rights, children's rights and family law. Since 2001, she has been assisting in curriculum development and implementation for judicial training centres in South East Europe. She works with national and international judges and public officials throughout Western, Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, but particularly in the Balkans, promoting familiarity and awareness with human rights standards and providing assistance in applying them in practice

Before setting up the AIRE Centre she was the Director of Interights for a number of years. Nuala read law at St Anne's College, Oxford and European law at the College of Europe. She speaks English, French, Spanish and Greek.

Biljana Braithwaite has been associated with the AIRE Centre since 1998. She runs the Centre's South Eastern Europe programmes with the assistance of Catharina Harby. In 1999, Biljana designed, obtained funding and implemented the first comprehensive training programme on the European Convention on Human Rights in Serbia and Montenegro which has later become part of the country's formal judicial training programme.

Biljana regularly lectures on the European Convention, focusing in particular on property rights, and the Court's jurisprudence from South Eastern Europe. She is also co-editor of the AIRE Centre's Human Rights Bulletin, an international legal review that provides a monthly analysis of key human rights judgments by the Strasbourg Court for the legal communities in the new member states of the Council of Europe, particularly in South Eastern Europe.

Since autumn 2004 Biljana has been based in Washington DC where she is coordinating efforts to establish AIRE Centre USA. AIRE Centre USA aims to promote for the benefit of the public the sound administration of the law among states which have ratified the European Convention on Human Rights and/or treaties establishing and regulating the European Union. It also seeks to promote an awareness of international human rights law through education and training in the USA and abroad and to keep the AIRE Centre alumni from across the Atlantic in touch with each other and with the AIRE Centre.

Biljana holds a law degree from Belgrade University and an LLM in Public International Law from Raoul Wallenberg Institute, Lund University, Sweden. She speaks fluent Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, English and basic German.

Theodora Christou joined the AIRE Centre in 2002. She has advised in over 200 cases many involving EC free movement and the application of human rights norms before the ECtHR, often also drawing from other international and regional systems. She drafted and edited most of the Centre's Information Notes and conducts the internship induction course. Theodora has been involved in a number of cases before the European and domestic courts, as well as third party interventions and has drafted responses to Consultations. Together with Nuala, Theodora teaches the 'Forced Migration and Human Rights' Unit as part of London South Bank University's (LSBU) MSc Refugee Studies.

Whilst at the AIRE Centre Theodora has also worked at other NGOs including the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL) working on a number of projects, most significantly the Legal Tools for Commonwealth Africa project organising training for lawyers and judges, and producing the Human Rights Manual and Sourcebook for Africa (co-authored with Keir Starmer QC). As a consultant to the Bar Human Rights Committee she produced the Manual for Palestinian Lawyers: Identifying, Investigating and Prosecuting Human Rights Violations (translated into Arabic). In addition to these publications, Theodora is a contributor of case comments to the European Human Rights Law Review and headnotes to the European Human Rights Reports.

Theodora has been nominated for a number of awards: jointly by the AIRE Centre and BIICL for the Reebok Human Rights Award 2006; by BIICL and supported by individuals, John Humphreys Freedom Award 2006; and the IBA Human Rights Award 2006. Supported by Nuala Mole and Keir Starmer QC, she was awarded the Peter Duffy Human Rights Award 2006 by Lincoln's Inn and returned in late 2006 from the European Court of Human Rights where she spent 3 months.

Theodora holds an LLB from LSBU and an LLM from King's College London, University of London, and having completed her Bar Vocational Course at Inns of Court School of Law she was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 2001. In addition to English, she speaks fluent Greek, as well as basic French and Spanish.

Catharina Harby is a Swedish lawyer who has been working with the AIRE Centre as a Legal Consultant since 2000. She runs, together with her colleague Biljana Braithwaite, the AIRE Centre's programme in Central and Eastern Europe. She has lectured on the substantive and procedural aspects of the European Convention on Human Rights throughout Central and Eastern Europe as well as in the United Kingdom, and has been involved in litigating a number of cases at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. These cases have concerned inter alia the proposed deportation of an AIDS sufferer from the UK to Brazil, and a property dispute in Portugal.

As part of a team of European experts, Catharina has been involved in the drafting of a human rights training manual for professional target groups across the 46 member states of the Council of Europe. The Manual aims to be a blueprint for human rights trainers which can then be adapted to suit the particular needs of the country or situation concerned.

Catharina also lectures part time in International Law and Human Rights at the International Relations Department of British American College London and Webster Graduate School, Regent's College, London.

She is the co-author of the Council of Europe's handbook on The Right to a Fair Trial, and a regular contributor of case comments to the European Human Rights Law Review. She is the Assistant Editor of the AIRE Centre's Human Rights Bulletin, which provides monthly analysis of key human right judgments by the European Court of Human Rights.

Catharina studied law at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, where she obatained a Master of Law and speaks fluent Swedish and English, as well as basic French.

Maryam Tabib specialises in family cases at the AIRE Centre and is currently involved in litigation against the United Kingdom Government before the ECtHR concerning the inability of parents to sue public authorities for the wrongful negligent mis-diagnosis of their children as having suffered non-accidental injury.

She has spoken on the rights of prisoners under the European Convention on Human Rights to see their families and has contributed to a handbook for prisoner's families published by the European Committee for the Children of Prisoners (EUROCHIPS). She has also contributed to International Family Law.

Maryam has an LLB and an LLM in child law and trained as a barrister. In addition to English she speaks fluent Farsi. She will be joining Coram Chambers as a pupil barrister in October 2007.

Adam Weiss first came to the AIRE Centre as an intern in the summer of 2005 and has been volunteering with us since his return to the UK in August 2006. He is currently completing a double degree programme between Columbia University (New York) and King's College, University of London, at the end of which he will have a JD (US law qualification) and a British LLM.

Once he has completed his studies in September 2007, Adam will be working for the AIRE Centre full time. His work will be funded by the Skadden Fellowship Foundation, a US organization which supports lawyers working in the public interest. Adam is the Skadden Foundation's first European fellow. In addition to working on various EU and ECHR law issues at the AIRE Centre, Adam is managing the AIRE Centre's Financial Inclusion Project. Once he begins his Skadden fellowship, which will last two years, Adam will focus on the needs of EU migrants, particularly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-positive migrants. He will also work on providing legal assistance under human rights law to victims of trafficking and forced labour.

Adam is originally from New York. He holds a BA in mediaeval history and literature from Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachussets), as well as a diplôme d'études approfondies in French literature from La Sorbonne (Paris). While studying law in New York Adam focused on constitutional law, fair housing law, and the rights of sexual minorities. At King's he is focusing on human rights and refugee law.

In addition to English Adam speaks fluent French and Spanish.

Megan Williams joined the AIRE Centre in September 2006, shortly after moving to the UK from New Zealand. Megan manages the AIRE Centre's advice service, case-work and internship programme. Her role also involves the financial and general administration of the office.

Before joining the AIRE Centre Megan worked in New Zealand focusing predominantly on issues of Maori rights to land and the foreshore and seabed, working for the Maori Legal Services department of a law firm and an iwi/tribe-based community law centre. She has been involved in taking claims to the Maori Land Court and the Waitangi Tribunal. She also worked for the Maori Land Court, assisting in the implementation of new legislation concerning the Foreshore and Seabed, Maori Fisheries and Maori Aquaculture.

She holds an LLB and a BA in Japanese and Asian studies from the University of Otago, New Zealand, and has also spent two years studying and working in Japan. She speaks fluent English, advanced Japanese and basic Spanish and Maori.

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