Members of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances

Mr. Luciano A. Hazan (Argentina), Chair-Rapporteur, appointed in 2017

Mr. Luciano A. Hazan, of Argentina, was a member of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) for two terms (2011-2013 and 2013-2017). He was a lawyer at the Grandmothers Plaza de Mayo Association for ten years, where he coordinated its legal team and litigated several criminal cases on enforced disappearances of children abducted during the dictatorship and whose identity have been changed. Luciano Hazan also coordinated the Truth and Justice Program and was Undersecretary of Policies Against Criminality, both at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights in Argentina; and served as legal counsel at the Human Rights Commission of the House of Representatives. He was a Lawyer at Active Memory, an association of the victims of the terrorist attack against AMIA in 1994, where he represented them in the case on the cover up of the crime by judicial and government officials. Hazan was also Assistant Director at the Institute for Comparative Studies in Criminal and Social Sciences (INECIP), and expert consultant on judicial reform at the Justice Studies Center of the Americas (JSCA). He studied Law with a mejor in Criminal Law (University of Buenos Aires) and Journalism, and has an LLM on Human Rights Law from Southwestern University Law School (Los Angeles, USA), thanks to the Fulbright-Siderman Scholarship. Currently he coordinates the Program against Institutional Violence at the Federal Public Defender´s Office of Argentina.

Ms Aua Balde (Guinea-Bissau), Vice-Chairperson, appointed in 2020

Ms Aua Baldé has an expertise in international human rights law, in particular the African Human Rights systems, and is the author of O Sistema Africano de Direitos Humanos e a Experiência dos Países Africanos de Língua Oficial Portuguesa, (UCP/2017). She has also published more broadly in human rights and her work experience reflects her expertise, including a position as a Visiting Professional at the International Criminal Court and various roles within the United Nations system. Notably, she has worked as an Information Analyst Officer at both the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic and at the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire, as well as Political Affairs Officer for the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau. She has also worked for the NGO Tostan in Senegal and as a Legal Adviser to the Minister of Education in Guinea-Bissau. She currently holds the position of special invited lecturer and researcher at the Catholic University of Portugal, where is she a PhD candidate conducting her doctoral research in international criminal law. Ms. Baldé has also been guest lecturer at several other universities for international criminal law; international humanitarian law; international human rights law, in particular the African human rights system. She has been admitted to the Portuguese and Bissau-Guinean Bar Associations. Ms. Baldé holds a law degree from the Autonomous University of Lisbon, a post-graduate diploma in human rights from Coimbra University and a post-graduate diploma in international humanitarian law and human rights in conflict situations from the University of Lisbon and the National Defense Institute of Portugal. Ms. Baldé also holds a master’s in law degree with specialization in international human rights law from Harvard Law School.

Mr. Tae-Ung Baik (Republic of Korea), appointed in 2015

Mr. Tae-Ung Baik, of Republic of Korea, is Professor of Law at the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii at Manoa. He teaches international human rights law, international criminal law, and comparative law. Before joining the law school, he taught at the Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia as assistant professor and Director of the Korean Legal Studies program. Mr. Baik was admitted to the Bar as an attorney-at-law in the State of New York. He worked for Human Rights Watch in New York as a research consultant, and served at the 56th United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights as a legal adviser to the delegation of Republic of Korea. Mr. Baik was engaged in the democracy movement in the 1980s-90s in the Republic of Korea, and had advised several human rights organizations. He serves as an editorial board member of law journals, and is the author of the book, Emerging Regional Human Rights Systems in Asia (2012). He published several articles on human rights and transitional justice issues. Mr. Baik graduated from Seoul National University College of Law. He earned his master (LL.M.) and doctoral (JSD) degrees on international human rights law from Notre Dame Law School in the U.S. He conducted research as a visiting scholar at East Asian Legal Studies, Harvard Law School.

Mr. Henrikas Mickevičius (Lithuania), appointed in 2015

Henrikas Mickevičius, of Lithuania, is the founder and Senior Advisor of the Human Rights Monitoring Institute in Lithuania and teaches European law at the School of Law of Emory University, USA. He has over 35 years of experience in national and international law practice, teaching and training, democratic and legal reform, promotion and protection of human rights in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and former Soviet Union. Mr. Mickevičius has served for a number of national and international agencies, including the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Open Society Institute, and expert bodies such as the Judicial Selection Commission, the Selection Commission of Senior Public Prosecutors, the Expert Committee for the Program on Strengthening Judicial Capacity in Moldova, and the Advisory Committee on the Reform of Legal Profession in Central Asia. Mr. Mickevičius is a former judge, trial attorney litigating, inter alia, at the European Court for Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee, and visiting professor of law in Lithuania and the United States. He has authored numerous articles, opinion pieces, commentaries, and reports, overviews, analysis, assessments, methodologies for a number of national and international institutions. Mr. Mickevičius has been educated in Lithuania, Hungary and the United States. He holds LL.M degree from Dickinson School of Law of Pennsylvania State University, USA.

Ms. Gabriella Citroni (Italy), appointed in 2021

Ms. Gabriella Citroni is Adjunct Professor of International Human Rights Law at the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy). She is also lecturer at the Geneva Academy of Humanitarian Law and Human Rights (Switzerland), holding a course on “Enforced Disappearances in International Law” for LL.M. students. She has been invited professor and imparted courses on international human rights and transitional justice at several universities worldwide, including the university Panthéon-Assas (Paris, France), the university of Aix-Marseille (Aix-en-Provence, France), the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (Lima, Perù), and the Academia Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (Saltillo, Mexico). She has cooperated, as legal advisor, with several NGOs providing legal assistance to victims of gross human rights violations and their relatives in different countries and delivering trainings to human rights defenders and local practitioners. In this realm, she is the senior legal advisor of TRIAL International. From 2003 to 2005, Ms. Citroni was a member, as legal advisor, of the Italian delegation at the United Nations during the negotiations of the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. She researches and has published extensively on subjects related to international human rights law. She has been appointed as expert witness before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in three prominent enforced disappearance cases. Ms. Citroni has been an external consultant in charge of researching and drafting studies on issues related to enforced disappearance for different international institutions, including the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe; the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

A list of former members is available here (scroll down to ‘Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances).