Researchers

Ana Cárdenas

Ana Cárdenas is currently an MPhil/PhD student in Law at King’s College. Ana completed her law degree at CIDE in Mexico City in 2006, and was awarded a Distinction on the MsC in Criminal Justice Policy at the London School of Economics. Ana has 5 years of work experience including legal assistance in public agencies and non-government organisations. Ana’s PhD research focuses on the different aspects of the Mexican “war on organised crime” and its effects on the criminal justice system. Ana’s research is under the supervision of Prof. Benjamin Bowling, Prof. Maurice Punch and Prof. Penny Green.

Becca Franssen

Becca is a current PhD student at Kings College London. After completing her undergraduate (BA Hons) in International Conflict Resolution and Medieval History in 2004 at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada, Becca moved to the UK to undertake her LLM International Law at the University of Westminster. Becca graduated in 2006 with distinction. Her masters thesis, titled Diamonds are a Warlords Best Friend: State-Corporate Crime, Economic Violence and International Corruption in Sierra Leone, investigated occurrences of state-corporate crime and economic violence in the Sierra Leone diamond trade. It was this work that led Becca to her current research. Beccas PhD thesis, titled: Peace and Unquiet: Post-conflict Justice in Sierra Leone looks at international and domestic peacebuilding initiatives in Sierra Leone and aims to understand different forms of justice, if and how these separate and how they may be reintegrated.

Claudia Alejandra Coll Agudelo

Alejandra is a lawyer from Cauca University in Colombia, currently studying towards the GEMMA master in Gender Studies at the University of Hull. Alejandra worked with victims of war in Colombia as a part of the Pacific Route of Women (part of the Women in Black movement) and has written publications regarding victims of armed conflict (“ Soy una victima… ¿y ahora que? And “Casos representativos de violencia en el Cauca”).

Craig Reeves

Craig is currently studying for his PhD in philosophy of law under the supervision of Prof. Alan Norrie at King’s College London. He has a First Class honours degree in Law from the University of Southampton (LLB, 2001-04) and did his postgraduate study in Continental Philosophy at the University of Essex (MA, 2005-07). His LLB dissertation on ideology in Marxist legal theory was awarded the Swords Prize for Best Undergraduate Research (2004). He began his PhD research, which is funded by a Kings Graduate School Scholarship, in October 2007. He is the administrator for the Critical Realism Postgraduate Network.

Craig’s profile at kcl.ac.uk

Fabian Zhilla

Fabian joined Kings MPhil/PhD in September 2008. He has been awarded the Chevening Scholarship by the British Council; USAID East Central Europe Visiting Scholarship and the Soros Foundation Open Society Scholarship. Fabian holds an LLB from the University of Tirana and an LLM from London Metropolitan University. He was Visiting Scholar in Public Administration at George Washington University, and in Economic Crime and Corruption at Georgetown University. Fabians PhD research is supervised by Dr Mary Vogel and Professor Penny Green.

Fabian’s profile at kcl.ac.uk

Fabiana Di Lorenzo

Fabiana Di Lorenzo is a PhD student in law at Kings College London, supervised by Professor Penny Green and Keith Ewing. She received a first MA in Law from the same institution in 2009 and a second MA in International Relations and Human Rights (2007) from the University of Turin, Italy. Fabiana also holds a BA in International Development (major in Economics) and a specialisation in International Finance.

Gisela Schmidt-Martin

Gisela has a First Class Honours degree in European Integration Studies from University College Cork (BA(E), 2002-06), and was nominated for for UCC Graduate of the Year 2006. In 2008, she attained a 2.1 Masters degree in International Human Rights Law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights at National University of Ireland, Galway. Her Masters thesis, completed under the supervision of Dr. Kathleen Cavanaugh, was entitled “Engagement or Isolation?: Sinn Fin, Hamas, and the Emerging Right to Democracy.” She has held internships at the Victims Unit of the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Phnom Penh, in the Permanent Mission of Ireland to the UN in NYC and with Front Line, the international foundation for the protection of human rights defenders in Dublin.

Henrique Carvalho

Henrique is currently doing his PhD in legal theory and international law, after completing an LLM (distinction) in Legal Theory at King’s College London. He did his law degree in the Catholic University of Pernambuco (LLB, 2002-2006), and then did a Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Reasoning and Legal Decision at the Federal University of Pernambuco (PgDip, 2006-2007), in Brazil. He has been awarded the School of Law Studentship for his PhD. Henrique’s research is supersived by Professor Alan Norrie and Professor Penny Green.

Henrique’s profile at kcl.ac.uk

Hin-Yan Liu

Hin-Yan obtained a BA in Psychology from the University of Alberta, Canada in 2005; during which he was awarded the Jason Lang Scholarship. He then followed this up with a LLB (Hons) from City University London in 2007. In 2008, he was awarded a Distinction on the LLM programme at University College London – specialising in Human Rights Law. Hin-Yans PhD research focuses on the Private Military Company (PMC) phenomenon, and is being supervised by Professors Penny Green and Leif Wenar.

Hin-Yan’s profile at kcl.ac.uk

James Martin

James graduated with a First Class honours degree in International Studies before commencing his PhD at Monash University, Australia. In 2009, he was awarded a Commonwealth Australian Postgraduate Award to fund his doctoral research investigating vigilantism and informal security networks in Zandspruit, an informal settlement on the northern outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa. This latest research is being supervised by Professor Jude McCulloch and Dr Dean Wilson. James has also been closely involved in an Australian Research Council funded project examining the government use of CCTV control systems in cities across Australia.

Louisa Loveluck

Louisa Loveluck is the International State Crime Initiative’s Egypt researcher. She holds a BA in Social and Political Sciences from King’s College, Cambridge, where she focused on the role of US foreign policy in shaping the domestic politics of Egypt and Yemen. She is currently Programme Administrator at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, where she has spent the last 12 months organising political dialogue workshops in Cairo.

Melanie Collard

Melanie is a current MPhil/PhD student at Kings College London. She completed her Law Degree at Universit de Lige, Belgium, in the course of which she took part in an exchange programme in International Relations at Florida International University of Miami (High Distinction). Melanie also holds an LLM in Public International Law from Queen Mary University of London and an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Kings College London (Distinction). Her main interests are state crime, torture, terrorism and racist violence. Her PhD thesis, titled From Algeria to Argentina: The Transfer of the French Savoir-Faire in the Making of Official Torturers, is supervised by Professor Penny Green and Dr Mary Vogel.

Pablo Ciocchini

Pablo is currently a PhD student at the University of the Basque Country. He has a law degree from the National University of La Plata (2004). After practising as solicitor for two years, he moved to Spain where he homologated his degree to a Spanish law degree at the University of Seville (2006). He obtained a Master degree in Sociology of Law from the Oati International Institute for the Sociology of Law (2007). Pablo is interested in the Basque Country conflict and has interviewed former Basque political prisoners for his master thesis titled Killing (life) time: A study of the perception of time in prison. The thesis was awarded Magna Cum Laude qualification. He was granted a scholarship for his PhD research by the University of the Basque Country. He was appointed Honorary Research Fellow (2010) and Visitor Research Collaborator (2011) in the University of Liverpool with a grant awarded by the University of the Basque Country. He has been invited as Visitor Scholar and awarded a scholarship by the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg (2011). His PhD thesis critically scrutinises how court delay has shaped Argentinean Criminal Justice.

Sanya Karakas

Sanya is of Kurdish origin from Turkey and graduated from Dicle University Law Faculty in Diyarbakir, Turkey. After completing her legal traineeship she worked as a lawyer in the field of criminal law and human rights law in Turkey from 2000 to 2006. Sanya has also been involved in human rights activism as a member of the Diyarbakir Bar Association, the Diyarbakir branch of Contemporary Lawyers Association and Human Rights Association. She undertook a legal internship with Kurdish human Rights Project and the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute. She completed an LLM in Human Rights at Birkbeck College, University of London in October 2007 and has been working at Kurdish Human Rights Project as a Legal Associate since September 2008. Sanya’s PhD will examine the question of impunity in Turkey in relation to state crimes.

Stéfanie Khoury

Stéfanie is reading for a joint PhD at Universit degli Studi di Milano and Universidad del Pais Vasco under the supervision of Dr Dave Whyte, University of Liverpool. She completed her Masters at the Oati Institute for the Sociology of Law (Eximia Cum Laude) in 2008; she holds an undergraduate degree (BA Dist.) from McGill University and has a Certificate in Law from Universit de Montral. Stfanie has worked as a R.A. for the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, McGill University. Her research focuses on corporate violations of human rights and the gaps in international human rights law regarding corporate accountability. She is currently a R.A. at the University of Liverpool on a British-Academy funded project entitled Developing Corporate Responsibility for Human Rights Violations (project leader Dr Dave Whyte).

Vanja Hamzić

Vanja holds two First Class Honours degrees from the University of Sarajevo and an LLM with Distinction degree in Human Rights Law from the University of Nottingham. He is a PhD Researcher and Visiting Lecturer in Human Rights Law at School of Law, King’s College London. He has worked as an activist and researcher with various international and civil society organisations in Europe, the Middle East, South Africa and South East Asia. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he was born, he co-founded and served as the President of Logos, a non-patriarchal inter-faith organisation. At an international level, he co-founded and co-headed the Muslim Advocacy Initiative. Vanja’s academic research primarily revolves around the legal and political conditionality of human subjectivity formation in Indonesia and Pakistan, while his broader interests span social and legal theory, human rights, global law/governance studies, criminology, philosophy and anthropology. He is interested in legal and social regulation of gender and sexuality as a form of state crime. His recent publications include Control and Sexuality: The Revival of Zina Laws in Muslim Contexts (Women Living Under Muslim Laws, London 2010), a critically acclaimed book co-written with Dr Ziba Mir-Hosseini which was translated in 2011 into Arabic, Indonesian and Urdu; Reforming Mental Disability Law in Africa: Practical Tips and Suggestions (University of Nottingham, Nottingham 2010), co-written with Professor Peter Bartlett; and ‘The Case of “Queer Muslims”: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in International Human Rights Law and Muslim Legal and Social Ethos’ (2011) 11(2) Human Rights Law Review 237-274.

Vanja’s profile at kcl.ac.uk

Yoana Fernanda Nieto Valdivieso

Yoana is a PhD Student within the Social Sciences Department of the University of Hull. In 2008 she was awarded an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to join the European Masters of Excellence in Women and Gender Studies (GEMMA), which she completed in 2010 with a double degree from the University of Hull (UK) and the University of Granada (Spain). Her MA dissertation, Engendering Colombian ex-guerrilleras’ personal narratives: Women guerrilla fighter’s experiences of becoming, being and leaving the armed struggle, received a high distinction. Yoana also holds a MA in History (distinction) from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and a BA in Social Communication and Journalism from the Universidad de Antioquia (Colombia). Yoana is member of the research group Gender, Subjectivity and Society from the Instituto de Estudios Regionales de la Universidad de Antioquia (INER) and from 2001 onwards has participated as a researcher in different research projects on gender and political violence, engendering DDR processes, and Truth, Justice, Reconciliation and Reparation in Colombia. In 2006 she co-authored the Book Mujeres No Contadas, with Luz Maria Londono, an account of the transition of ex-female guerrilla combatants demobilized in Colombia between 1990 and 1994 from the armed groups to civil life.