Jo Baker is an independent researcher and writer, with a focus on social exclusion, conflict and gender. She has a background in policy, advocacy and journalism - particularly in Asia, having worked with the Asian Human Rights Commission for three years and lived in the region for much of her life. She holds an MA (Distinction) in Human Rights Law from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and is currently consulting with UN Women, in New York. Jo has been published in over thirty newspapers, online portals and journals, from TIME to the World Politics Review, and has worked recently with the Cairo Institute on Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), the International Crisis Group and the Helen Bamber Foundation. She will publish a policy paper with the Read the full article

Study on Gender and Sri Lanka's Commissions of Inquiry to be published by the LST Review. Abstract: Truth-telling mechanisms have consistently been shown to take on and perpetuate the gender-biases of their contexts. By exploring the scope of State-led and condoned discrimination towards Sri Lanka’s largest group of war-affected survivors, Tamil women in the North and East of the country, this paper aims to highlight the need for gender-sensitive truth commissioning following the conflict, and to assess key legal and practical obstacles to achieving this according to the international legal framework on non-discrimination. Drawing on critiques of Sri Lanka’s past and current Commissions of Inquiry, and on best practice, it then briefly proposes ways to place Tamil women more centrally, and therefore legally, within the transitional narrative. This paper was prepared as part of an MA degree in Human Rights Law at ... Read the full article

Respect and Protect? Exploring the need for the United Nations Human Rights Council to strengthen its response to reprisals This study will be joint-published as a policy paper later this year with the International Service for Human Rights, and was written thanks to input from a wide range of human rights practitioners working with and at the UN Human Rights Council. It falls among an expanding body of concern on the subject of reprisals against human rights defenders who cooperate with its key mechanisms. In addressing the reliance of Council mechanisms – and indeed the UN’s overarching objectives – on private actors and intermediaries, I contend that it cannot effectively fulfill its mandate without better protecting such persons – and being seen to be doing so. I first look at the nature of the relationship between Council and cooperator, ... Read the full article