Biographies of the members of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan

Ms. Yasmin Sooka (South Africa) is a leading human rights lawyer. She is currently the Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights in South. Ms. Sooka served on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 1996-2001 and chaired the committee responsible for the final report from 2001-2003. She was appointed by the United Nations to serve on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone from 2002-2004. Since 2000, she has also been a member of the Advisory Body on the Review of Resolution 1325. In July 2010, Ms. Sooka was appointed to the three-member Panel of Experts advising the Secretary General on accountability for war crimes committed during the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka.

Mr. Barney Afako (Uganda) is a lawyer with experience in conflict mediation.  He has worked in the fields of human rights, refugee law, criminal justice and transitional justice issued in several countries.  He is a part-time Tribunal Judge in the United Kingdom.  Between 2006 and 2008, he was the Chief Legal Advisor to the South Sudanese mediation in the Juba Peace Talks between the Government of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army.  In that capacity, he developed and drafted the Final Peace Agreement, with particular responsibility for the Agreement on Reconciliation and Accountability.  In 2009, he advised the African Union Panel on Darfur (AUPD) and was responsible for drafting the justice recommendations of the AUPD's report.  From 2010, he has been an adviser to the African Union High Level Implementation Panel on South Sudan, which was responsible for facilitating negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan on secession issues.

Mr. Carlos Castresana Fernández (Spain) is a magistrate who has headed investigations and prosecutions in Spain on corruption, organized crime, terrorism, and international crimes. From 2005-2015, he served on the Supreme Court of Spain. In 2015, he went to private practice as an attorney before resuming his career as a public prosecutor in 2020. Mr. Castresana served as Commissioner of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala with the rank of UN Assistant-Secretary-General from 2007-2010. He also worked as a consultant and senior expert for various national, regional and international organizations, including UN entities, on cooperation in criminal matters, anti-corruption, human rights and transitional justice.

Pr. Andrew Clapham (United Kingdom) is Professor of Public International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. He was the first Director of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights (June 2006 - July 2014). He teaches international human rights law and public international law. Prior to joining the Institute in 1997, he was the Representative of Amnesty International at the United Nations in New York. Andrew Clapham has worked as Special Adviser on Corporate Responsibility to High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, and Adviser on International Humanitarian Law to Sergio Vieira de Mello, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Iraq. He is an Associate Member of Matrix Chambers.

Mr. Kenneth Scott (United States) is an international human rights/international justice practitioner and consultant, involved in a wide range of projects. He is currently a Special Prosecutor at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Mr. Scott was previously a senior prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) from 1998-2011. Prior to his work at the ICTY, Mr. Scott was an Assistant United States Attorney and Chief of the Complex Prosecutions Section in the prosecution office, focusing primarily on complex white-collar and financial crimes from 1985-1997. He has also taught international law, constitutional law and the U.S. judicial system at U.S. universities, and acts as faculty at various international training programs. He served as an international justice consultant to Amnesty International on South Sudan in 2015.

Dr. Godfrey M Musila (Kenya) is currently a legal consultant in the areas of human rights, transitional justice and the rule of law. From 2015-2016, he served as the head of International Criminal Law Research Program at International Nuremberg Principles Academy in Germany. He was a lead researcher on the African Union Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan (AUCISS) in 2014. Before this, he worked extensively in Africa as a legal advisor, consultant and researcher. As the director of Kenyan Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) in 2010, he helped conceptualize the work of the TJRC and authored several chapters for the Commission. Dr. Musila is also an experienced lecturer on international law, international criminal law and human rights law. He has taught at universities in Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania and guest lectured in Europe and the USA.