Christian Attard
Member for Malta

Christian Attard obtained his doctoral degree in law from the University of Malta in 2005 and was admitted to the Maltese bar a year later. He is a founding member of the Malta Gay Rights Movement (MGRM) and was board member of the same organisation between 2001 and 2007. In that position he was responsible, amongst other tasks, for monitoring the transposition of EU anti-discrimination law into Maltese law in the run-up to Malta's accession to the EU and for publicising the relevant legislation and providing training to an array of organisations. He has worked for the Office of the Commissioner for Refugees in Malta and is currently an official with the European Parliament.

Søren Baatrup
Member for Denmark, Greenland and Faroe

Søren V. Baatrup (born 1966), founding member of the ECSOL, holds a master degree in laws from the University of Copenhagen (1991). From 1993 until 2007 he served as a legal advisor (on a voluntary basis) at the advisory body for gays and lesbians run by the LGBT Denmark (former LBL), the national organisation for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people. Between 2002 and 2004 he was member of the European Group of Experts on Combating Sexual Orientation Discrimination, which reported to the Commission of the European Communities, about the implementation of the Employment Equality Directive. The work was coordinated by Kees Waaldijk. Beside the above mentioned he is specialised in liability insurance and works as a senior manager in Topdanmark Forsikring (Insurance) being in charge of two underwriting departments.

Susanne Baer
Member for Germany

Susanne Baer, is Professor of Public Law and Gender Studies at the Law Faculty a Humboldt University of Berlin, William W. Cook Global Law Professor, University of Michigan, USA, and visiting faculty at CEU Budapest. She has also taught in Bielefeld, Erfurt, Linz, Fiesole, and Toronto. She runs the GenderCompetence centre to advise the government on equality policies, and collaborates with the Berilin state agency against discrimination. She served as an independent expert on sexual orientation discrimination in Europe. Her research areas are socio-cultural legal studies, gender studies, law against discrimination, comparative constitutional law, constitutionalism and governance. Publications in english include, with Norman Dorsen, Michel Rosenfeld, Andras Sájo, Comparative Constitutionalism, St. Paul 2003, Dignity, Liberty, Equality: A Fundamental Rights Triangle of Constitutionalism, University of Toronto Law Journal 4 (2009) 417-468. The End of Private Autonomy" or "Rights-Based Legislation? The Anti-Discrimination Law Debate in Germany", ANNUAL OF GERMAN AND EUROPEAN LAW (AGEL).

Dmitri Bartenev
Member for Russia

Dmitri Bartenev, Attorney at Law, Senior Legal Monitor for Russia, Mental Disability Advocacy Center, holds an M.D. degree from the Petrozavodsk State University, Russia (1998), a degree in law from the same university (1999) and a doctorate degree in public international law from St. Petersburg State University, Russia (2006). Admitted to the Russian Bar in 2000. Since 2003 he works as Professor of Law at St. Petersburg State University and from 2004 as Legal Monitor for Mental Disability Advocacy Center, an international NGO based in Budapest, Hungary. He has been involved in a number of topical ECHR cases concerning rights of people with mental health or intellectual disabilities. Since 2006 Dmitri has been representing Moscow Gay Russia Project in a number of cases concerning freedom of assembly, hate crimes against lgbt people in Russia, and discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Matteo Bonini-Baraldi
Member for European Union Law

Matteo Bonini-Baraldi, LL.M. at UBC (Vancouver) in 2002, holds a PhD from the University of Bologna (2004). From 2002 to 2004 he was a researcher at Universiteit Leiden (the Netherlands) were he served as assistant-coordinator to the European Group of Experts on Combating Sexual Orientation Discrimination (click here for more information), dealing with the new European legal framework against sexual orientation discrimination at the workplace. Other areas of interest include private and contract law, private international law, EC law and family law. He is the author of several publications in the field of legal recognition of same-sex couples. In 2006 he co-authored (with Kees Waaldijk) a book which assesses the legal framework against sexual orientation discrimination in European law and in the current twenty-seven Member States. He has drafted or edited legal opinions, policy papers and guidelines for the benefit of national and international human rights organisations such as ILGA-Europe, as well as amicus curiae briefs or proposals for specific legislation dealing with sexual orientation and/or gender identity. He now works as EU Research Adviser for the University of Bologna, Italy and is president of the Bologna-based European Study Centre on Discrimination.
Currently he serves as programme manager - legal research in the equality and citizen's rights department of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.

Paul Borghs
Member for Belgium and Luxemburg

Paul Borghs was born on 12 April 1963 in Antwerp (Belgium). He holds a master’s degree in law (University of Antwerp, 2003), a master’s degree in applied economics (University of Antwerp, 1985) and a candidate’s degree in political and social sciences (University of Antwerp, 1986). Since 1992 he has been active, as a volunteer, in the Belgian lesbian and gay movement, where he followed, at first hand, the realization of the LGBT-friendly laws in Belgium. He published several articles, mainly about the legal aspects of lesbian and gay partnership and parenthood and about the history of lesbian and gay rights in Belgium. He also published the following books (in Dutch): “Juridische aspecten van homoseksueel ouderschap” (Legal Aspects of Homosexual Parenthood) (Mys & Breesch, 1998) and “De Antidiscriminatiewet” (The Anti-Discrimination Law) (Garant, 2003). He co-edited “Holebi-beleid en de gemeente“ (Gay and Lesbian Policies and the Local Authority) (Politeia, 2000). His main interests include gay and lesbian partnership, gay and lesbian parenthood, anti-discrimination law and sexual criminal law.

Daniel Borrillo
Co-Member France

Daniel Borrillo is a member of the law faculty at the University of Paris Ouest, where he is also co-director of the Center for Research on Fundamental Rights and leader of academic programs on Equality and the Politics of Social Diversity, and Rights and Sexuality. He is also an affiliated researcher at CERSA, the Center for the Research in the Administrative Sciences. Professor Borrillo has served as legal advisor to France's leading AIDS activist organization, Aides, and is a consultant to the European Union on combating sexual orientation discrimination. He is widely regarded as a leading expert on the French form of same-sex marriage, the pacs (pacte civil de solidarité), and has written widely on that topic, in addition to AIDS, sexuality-based discrimination, and European Union law and politics. Visiting professor at Carlos III University in Madrid, Daniel Borrillo is the author of more than 15 books about these issues.

Constantin Cojocariu
Member for Romania

Constantin Cojocariu holds a bachelor's degree in law from the University of Iasi, Romania (2000), a MA in Public Policies from the same university (2002) and a LLM in Human Rights from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary (2003). In 2000 he was admitted as a qualified lawyer to Iasi Bar Association, Romania. Previously he worked for a number of Romanian human rights organizations such as Pro Democracy Association and Equal Opportunities for Women Foundation. Between 2005 and 2007 Constantin worked as Staff Attorney for the European Roma Rights Centre, having been involved in a number of topical Strasbourg cases concerning Roma rights. In 2007, Constantin joined INTERIGHTS, a London-based NGO providing legal expertise on international and comparative human rights law, where he handles among others the work of the organization on LGBT rights in Central and Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union.

Janka Debreceniova
Member for Slovakia

Janka Debrecéniová holds a law degree from the University of Matej Bel in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, and a Magister Juris in European and Comparative Law degree from the University of Oxford. From 2000, she has been working for the Citizen, Democracy and Accountability civic association (www.oad.sk), a human rights NGO based in Slovakia with a strong focus on anti-discrimination and on human rights of women. She has been actively involved in many legislative and policy initiatives in these fields. For example, she has been a member of the Governmental Inter-Departmental Committee on Amending the Anti-Discrimination Act (2007-2008) whereby prohibition of discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation was introduced for all the fields covered by the act. She also (co-)authored public comments to various drafts of legislation relating to, inter alia, reform of civil law from the perspective of rights of women and people with non-heterosexual orientation, to reproductive rights, to labour law reform from the perspective of anti-discrimination and professional-personal life reconciliation, to reform of procedural regulations relating to enforcing the right to equal treatment and to institutional reforms in this field, and represented the public in subsequent negotiations with the government on these issues. She is an author of a comprehensive commentary on the Slovak Anti-Discrimination Act and of various articles and book chapters on anti-discrimination (including e. g. one on the need to legislatively institutionalise intimate partnerships of non-heterosexual couples and one on gender biases in courts). She is a member of the European Network of Legal Experts in the Non-Discrimination Field on the Grounds of Race and Ethnic Origin, Age, Disability, Religion or Belief and Sexual Orientation. On behalf of her organisation, she also represents persons affected by discrimination in judicial proceedings.

Stefano Fabeni
Co-Member for Italy, Member for San Marino and Vatican City

Stefano Fabeni is the director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex (LGBTI) Initiative at Global Rights, an international non governmental organization based in Washington, DC.

Previously, Mr. Fabeni served as the Italian member of the European Group of Experts on Combating Discrimination on grounds of Sexual Orientation. He was the conceiver and the coordinator of the EU funded project CERSGOSIG-InformaGay and the project’s director of the center for research and legal comparative studies on sexual orientation and gender identity, running the center’s legal database on sexual orientation and gender identity. He has served for several years as a pro bono legal advisor and consultant of the New Rights Department of the national trade union Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (Italian Labor General Confederation). Mr. Fabeni also has served as a consultant and legal expert for institutions, consultancy firms and NGOs throughout Europe, as well as for the World Health Organization. He is the author of several bills introduced to the Italian Parliament in the XIV, XV and XVI legislatures, namely on transgender rights, legal recognition of same sex and de facto couples, and anti-discrimination legislation. He serves as a member of the Commission on LGBT rights of the Italian Ministry of Equal Opportunity.

He has written several articles on LGBTI issues and often is asked to speak on the subject. Mr. Fabeni is the editor and author (together with Maria Gigliola Toniollo) of the book La discriminazione fondata sull’orientamento sessuale - L’attuazione della direttiva 2000/78/CE e la nuova disciplina per la protezione dei diritti delle persone omosessuali sul posto di lavoro (Discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation The implementation of the directive 2000/78/EC and the new legislation for the protection of the rights of homosexuals at the workplace), Roma, 2005.
Mr. Fabeni is a member of the board of the International Lesbian and Gay Law Association (ILGLaw), has been an honorary member of the Italian transgender NGO Crisalide AzioneTrans and an advocate and legal advisor for InformaGay.

Mr. Fabeni holds a laurea in giurisprudenza (equivalent to J.D.) from the University of Torino and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from Columbia University School of Law (James Kent Scholar).

Barry Fitzpatrick
Member for Northern Ireland and Isle of Man

Barry Fitzpatrick is Deputy Director of the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities. He is a qualified solicitor who has held academic posts in Preston, Leicester and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1995, he joined the University of Ulster, where he was Professor of European Law and Head of the Law School. From 2002-05, he was Head of Legal Policy and Advice at the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland. He was an equality law and policy consultant between 2005-2008. He was a Part-Time Chairman of Industrial Tribunals from 1998-2002 and has been Deputy Chairman of the Industrial Court from 2001, acting as Chairman from 2006-08 and again in 2010. He was the inaugural Convenor of the Coalition on Sexual Orientation (CoSO), an umbrella group of LGB groups in Northern Ireland from 1998-2000 and has written extensively on equality issues, including SO equality, and has contributed to a range of policy responses on LGB issues.

Miguel Freitas
Member for Portugal

P. Miguel Freitas (born 1971), has a degree in law by the University of Coimbra's School of Law (1994). In 1995 he was admitted to the Centro de Estudos Judiciários (the Portuguese school for the judiciary) where he concluded his studies in 1998. Since that year he has served as a judge in several courts of first instance. Since 2000 he has worked mainly in the areas of criminal law (and more recently, military criminal law) and sexual orientation discrimination law. He worked, on a voluntary basis, with a Portuguese LGBT organization, as an advisor on legal matters, and has done voluntary work for some international LGBT organizations. He was also member of the European Group of Experts on Combating Sexual Orientation Discrimination, commissioned by the European Commission and coordinated by Kees Waaldijk. Currently he also teaches criminal law as part of a course for aspirants to the judiciary.

Hrefna Fridriksdóttir
Member for Iceland

Hrefna Fridriksdottir was born in Reykjavik 1965. She graduated from the Law Faculty, University of Iceland in 1989 (Cand.jur), passed the bar exam and worked at Icelands biggest law firm for six years. Hrefna has an LLM degree in law from Harvard Law School (1996) and the name of her master thesis was: The Nordic gay and lesbian "marriage": No children allowed.  She worked for tvelve years as head of the legal department for The Government Agency for child protection and a lecturer with the University in Iceland. Hrefna is currently an associate professor in the Law Faculty, University of Iceland and her main fields are family law, children´s rights, child protection, inheritance law, social law and policy and sexual orientation law. She wrote the chapter on Iceland in the report More or less together: Levels of legal consequences of marriage, cohabitation and registered partnership for different-sex and same-sex partners. A comparative study of nine European countries, published by the Institut National d’Etudes Démographiques in 2005. She has also written articles on same-sex partnership in Icelandic publications.

Helmut Graupner
Member for Austria, Liechtenstein, Co-Coordinator | hg@graupner.at | www.graupner.at | Wikipedia

Helmut Graupner, 1989 Master of Law; 1996 Doctor of Law; 2000 admitted to the Bar in Austria and in the Czech Republic; since 1991 president of Rechtskomitee LAMBDA (RKL), the Austrian lesbian and gay rights organisation; since 1992 Co-President of the Austrian Society for Sex Research (ÖGS); expert to the Austrian Federal Parliament, to the German Federal Parliament, and to the European Commission on issues of sexual offences legislation, partnership, and antidiscrimination legislation; member of the Expert Committee on the Revision of the Law on Sexual Offences appointed by the Austrian Minister of Justice (1996-2004); since 1999 member of the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS); since 2000 member of the editorial board of the Journal of Homosexuality (Routledge: Philadelphia); since 2000 Co-Director for Europe of the International Lesbian and Gay Law Association (ILGLaw); Austrian member and co-coordinator of the European Commission on Sexual Orientation Law (ECSOL); lecturer in law at the University of Innsbruck ("Sexuality & the Law"); and since 2006 lecturer at the Academy of European Law.

Successfully litigated LGBT rights cases before the European Court of Human Rights (L. & V. vs. Austria 2003; S. L. vs. Austria 2003; Woditschka & Wilfling vs. Austria 2004; Franz Ladner vs. Austria 2005, Thomas Wolfmeyer vs. Austria 2005; H.G. & G.B. vs. Austria 2005; R.H. vs. Austria 2006), before the European Court of Justice (Tadao Maruko vs. VdBB 2008), and before the Austrian Constitutional Court (striking down of the discriminatory age of consent; deletion of police data stored under discriminatory age of consent legislation; public health insurance benefits for same-sex partners; marriage rights for transsexual persons) and the Administrative High Court of Austria (change of legal sex without surgery). Author of the book “Sexualität, Jugendschutz & Menschenrechte” (“Sexuality, Youth Protection and Human Rights”, Fft./M. et. al.: Peter Lang 1997); Co-edited the books Sexuality & Human Rights - A Global Overview (New York: Haworth Press 2005) and Adolescence, Sexuality & the Criminal Law - Multidisciplinary Perspectives (New York: Haworth Press 2005).

2001 Gay And Lesbian Award (G.A.L.A.) by the Austrian LGBT-movement
2009 Civil Courage Award (“Zivilcouragepreis”) by CSD-Berlin

Rainer Hiltunen
Member for Finland

Rainer Hiltunen (LL.M) is the Head of Office of the Finnish Ombudsman for Minorities and has worked at the office since 2002. He finished his masters? degree in law in 1995 and the subject of his master thesis was same-sex partnerships in Finnish legislation. In 1996-2002 he worked as the Executive Director of the National Lesbian and Gay Association Seta. During that time he took part in the long process of getting new partnership legislation approved in Finland. For example, he worked as a member of the Ministry of Justice? s working group prepairing the partnership law which was passed in 2002. He has also written articles on same-sex partnerships and anti-discrimination in Finnish law.

Margarita Ilieva
Member for Bulgaria

Margarita Ilieva is a practicing attorney and Legal Director of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (www.bghelsinki.org). She is a member of the European Network of Legal Experts in discrimination (http://ec.europa.eu). Margarita is the principal drafter of the Bulgarian equality legislation and an author of three books on discrimination law.

Sopio Japaridze
Member for Georgia

Mrs. Japaridze was born in 1980 in Georgia. In 2002 she graduated from the law faculty of Tbilisi State University, Georgia. From 2002 to 2006 she worked as a lawyer in Georgian NGO “Article 42 of the Constitution“ and was a member of the board of the organization. In 2006 Mrs. Japaridze was admitted to the Georgian Bar Association as a civil/administrative lawyer. From 2006 to 2009 Mrs. Japaridze worked for the Georgian NGO “Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association” (GYLA) as a strategic litigation lawyer and a project coordinator. Within the framework of the project “Strengthening Human Rights Capacity in Georgia”, Mrs. Japaridze was responsible for litigating cases before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as well as for drafting shadow reports to the UN treaty bodies. She also supervised the project “Strategic Litigation for the Victims of Russian-Georgian Armed Conflict of August 2008”. Since 2008 Mrs. Japaridze has also served as a member of the GYLA board. After completing several study visits on LGBT rights in Strasbourg and Sweden, Mrs Japaridze contributed to the shadow reports on the implementation of the European Social Charter and the status of LGBT persons in Georgia submitted to the European Committee for Social Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee respectively.

As a representative (lawyer) Mrs. Japaridze is involved in 54 different cases before the ECtHR including the cases against the Russian Federation regarding the collective and allegedly unlawful deportation of Georgian citizens from the Russian Federation in 2006 and human rights violations committed during or shortly after the Russian -Georgian armed conflict of August 2008. She has published several articles on human rights and gave speeches on different occasions on homophobia and hate crimes, as well as on human rights situation of LGBT persons in Georgia.

Mrs. Japaridze is currently involved in the LLM programme in International Human Rights Law at University of Essex, UK.

Sanja Juras
Member for Croatia

Sanja Juras is the coordinator of the Lesbian Group Kontra (since 2002), and one of the founders and the coordinator of the Legal Team of Iskorak and Kontra - joint team of two LGBT NGOs from Croatia - Lesbian Group Kontra and Iskorak- Sexual and Gender Minorities' Rights Center, that provides direct legal help to victims of hate crimes and advocates for rights of sexual and gender minorities (since 2003). She is also a coordinator of the Women's Network of Croatia - feminist political network of 40 organisations from different parts of Croatia, member of the European Women's Lobby (since 2007). She is lecturer on the subject of lesbian studies at the Centre for Women's Studies in Zagreb (since 2005). She advocated for and created numerous bills and amendments to laws and legal documents in regards to LGBT and women's rights, adopted by the Croatian Parliament. Cases of the Legal Team that followed the adoption of these laws became presedents in regards to the protection of rights of sexual and gender minorities in Croatia. Ms. Juras cooperated in the creation of the module for education of police officers in regards to hate crimes and held trainings at the Police Academy in Zagreb and Pula (2006-2007). She is a public representative for both the Legal Team of Iskorak and Kontra and the Women's Network of Croatia. She participated in organisation of LGBT pride manifestations in Croatia (2002-2005), and International Women's Day marches (2005 - 2009). She is co-author of annual reports on status of human rights of sexual and gender minorities (2002-2008) published by Kontra and Iskorak, author of the LGBT Manual for the Use of the Anti-discrimination Provisions and Laws in Croatia (2004-2006), and a co-author of the Annual Report on the Status of Women's Rights in Croatia (2006).

Neza Kogovsek
Member for Slovenia

Neža Kogovšek holds a law degree from the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Law (2002), and a Masters degree in international human rights law from the University of Notre Dame, Law School, U.S.A. (2004). She is a PhD candidate at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Law. She works in the field of human rights law, in particular in the areas of anti-discrimination, citizenship, asylum and migration law. She is the author of numerous articles, reports and legal briefs on sexual orientation law. She is a member of the European Network of Legal Experts in Anti-Discrimination Field since 2007, a deputy member of Odysseus Academic Network for asylum and migration since 2008, and a member of ESCOL network since 2009.

Jovan Kojicic
Member for Montenegro

Jovan Kojičić is an Assistant Professor in European Law. Prof. Kojičić has an extensive background in environmental law (and international environmental law), policy and legislative framework, as well as in the human rights field. Teaching is an environment that he has found both intellectually stimulating and part of his own growth as a professional. Prof. Kojičić received his Juris Doctorate at the Viadrina European University in Germany. During his doctoral studies he was awarded the prestigious German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Fellowship. Prof. Kojičić joined the Faculty of Administrative and European Studies in Podgorica in April 2008. Currently he is doing his post-doctoral thesis in the field of human rights in international law and the relation of law to social change at the Lund University Department of Sociology of Law in Lund, Sweden. Prof. Kojičić is also a visiting researcher at the department of European, Public International and Public Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Leipzig, Germany. He has been a full member of the Southeast Europe Society (Munich, Germany) since 2003, as well as a listed expert in Environmental Law for Serbia and Montenegro with the Eco Institute for Applied Ecology in Darmstadt, Germany. Prof. Kojičić was also a member of the European Economic and Social Committee Study Group (2001-2003) for the ECOSOC Project of South-Eastern European Countries. Over the years, Prof. Kojičić has received many awards such as: Academic Fellowship, DAAD, for the 19th European Summer Academy in Germany (2008); Academic Research Fellowship, DAAD (2008); Graduate College Europa Fellows II, Federal German Ministry of Education and Research and European Union Fellows Programme, European University Viadrina, Germany (2005); European Viadrina University PhD Fellow (2004); The European System of Human Rights Summer Course Fellow, European Viadrina University, Council of Europe and DAAD (2003), among others. He is the President of the DAAD Alumni Club Montenegro and the principal organiser of the international conference “Justice in the Balkans: Equality for Sexual Minorities”.

Caroline Mécary
Member for France and Monaco

Caroline Mécary was admitted to the Paris Bar in 1991. She has published various legal essays and is a frequent columnist with specialised legal journals, as well as with newspapers. She is often invited to participate in TV and radio shows. In February 2009, she was elected president of the Fondation Copernic, a think tank from the left of the political spectrum, as successor to Roger Martelli and Anne Le Strat. At the same time, she is responsible for managing the lawyers’ network of the “Réseau d’aide aux victimes d’agression et de discrimination” (R.A.V.A.D, i.e. the Network to assist victims of assault and discrimination), an association federating many LGBT associations in France. Previously specialising in criminal law and in immigration and asylum law (she assisted illegal immigrants occupying the Saint-Bernard Church), Caroline Mécary now mainly focuses on family law (adoption, succession, divorce, etc.). She also focuses on issues relating to new family forms: extension of civil marriage to same-sex couples (she represented the same-sex couple married in Bègles), recognition of the right of children raised by same-sex couples (she obtained the first adoption judgment in favour of a same-sex couple in June 2001, as well as the first judgment on delegation of parental authority in July 2004, and finally the first decision of the French Supreme Court on delegation of parental authority in February 2006).

In January 2008, she obtained from the European Court of Human Rights a decision ruling that the refusal of an authorisation to adopt opposed to a lesbian based on her sexual orientation was incompatible with Articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. She is often approached both in France and from abroad on any issues relating to discrimination, whatever their basis (sex, race, sexual orientation, handicap, etc.) and their area (criminal law, family law, employment law). She represents and assists her clients before French Courts as well as before the European Court of Human Rights, to which she often submits cases (extension of civil marriage to same-sex couples, adoption of the other partner’s child, homophobic insults, surrogate motherhood).

Reimo Mets
Member for Estonia

Reimo Mets, a lawyer of the Advocate office Veso & Partners, holding a Master`s degree in law from the University of Tartu (Estonia 2002). Previously, he has worked for a number of Estonian law offices and established a NGO Sexual Minorities Protection Union. Reimo is a well-known lawyer in Estonia, who stands openly for the rights of sexual minorities and is an expert in the family law. He has participated in many TV, Radio shows as well as written educational stories about LGBT people in general. In addition to the advocacy in sexual minorities’ rights, he has also presented several constitutional rights cases to the Ombudsman, which have received positive solutions. On February 2009 he sued the Estonian Republic in hate crime case (in co-operation with Interights) to the EcHR – Mets vs Estonia was declared inadmissible on June 2009. He is ILGA -Europe supportive member and he has given lectures and seminars, or spoken at conferences or universities. He is openly gay and fights against homophobia and discrimination.

Goran Miletic
Member for Albania, Serbia and Kosovo

Goran Miletić has a Bachelor of Laws from Belgrade University (Serbia) and a European Regional MA in Democracy and Human Rights (joint programme of the University of Sarajevo and the University of Bologna). He has previously worked for the Humanitarian Law Centre (HLC) in Belgrade (Serbia). During his work in HLC, Mr. Miletić dealt mainly with minority rights, including Roma, Albanians and Bosniaks. His work included monitoring of freedom from torture and prohibition of discrimination. That included advocacy and lobbying activities as well as representing the victims before Serbian courts. Goran worked on the preparation of different shadow reports on implementation of UN and CoE conventions, as well as the reports “Roma in Serbia” and “Albanians in Serbia”. He has also worked on preparation of applications to UN bodies.

Goran Miletić started working for the Civil Rights Defenders (former Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights) in 2004 as Programme Officer and later Human Rights Lawyer for the Western Balkans. His work includes co-operation and support of different human rights and minority NGOs from Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Macedonia. During his work he was particularly engaged in drafting and lobbying for adoption of inclusive anti-discrimination legislation in Western Balkan countries. He prepared and conducted numerous training sessions related to LGBT rights, including advocacy, lobbying, fund raising and monitoring of human and minority rights. His lectures included various aspects of respect of human and minority rights of LGBT community as well as legislation and practice in countries in the region. He was involved in capacity building of LGBT activists not only in the Balkans, but also in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

During his work he prepared numerous reports, articles and lectures, and published in the region. His public appearance included promotion and advocacy for LGBT and minority rights as well as publishing of different analyses, articles and columns in major media in Serbia and the region. In 2010, Mr. Miletić become a candidate for the Equality Commissioner in Serbia.

Ninoslav Mladenovic
Member for Macedonia

Mr. NInoslav Mladenovic, born 1974 in Skopje, Macedonia, has earned his LLB degree in Criminal Justice at St. Cyril & Methodius University Faculty of Law in 1998, and his LLM degree in International Human Rights Law at the University of Notre Dame Law School in 2001, where primary focus of his academic research was criminalization of same-sex relationships between consenting adults. He has an extensive professional experience in human rights filed with OSCE, UN and various national and international NGOs. His primary focus is promotion and protection of international minority rights standards, analyzing the implementation of those standards in comparative jurisdictions, and proposing policy initiatives to address problems faced by particular vulnerable groups. To this end, considerable portion of his research he dedicated specializing in sexual orientation law, proposing policy initiatives to address problems faced by national/ethnic minorities, yet activitiesDebreceniovaaovato reduction of child poverty and women's empowerment in Western Balkans region.

Mr. Mladenovic’s involvement in the field of public health began with an interest in HIV prevention strategies in his native Macedonia, where being involved in the implementation of the project related to advocacy and lobbying for improvement of sexual and reproductive health and rights of young people. His international involvement, particularly with respect to the work of the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG) only broadened the scope of his interest in HIV testing, criminalization of HIV transmission, travel restrictions for HIV positive people, providing information to patients etc. Having in mind his specific advocacy and health policy interest, he is currently completing his LLM in Reproductive and Sexual Health Law at University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where conducting his qualitative research related to the actual needs and priorities of sex workers, drug users, men having sex with men, prisoners, and migrant communities, thus analyzing the existing legislation, policies and
recommendations concerned with sexual health and human rights of the abovementioned vulnerable social groups.

Since 2006, Mr. Mladenovic is working as a Senior Human Rights Adviser with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights - Research Association in Macedonia (currently on sabbatical leave).

Kenneth Norrie
Member for Scotland, Jersey and Guernsey

Professor of Law University of Strathclyde, Law School, Lord Hope Building, 141 St James Road, Glasgow G4 0LT, SCOTLAND. Employment History Lecturer in Law University of Dundee 1982-1983 Lecturer in Law University of Aberdeen 1983-1990 Senior Lecturer in Law University of Strathclyde 1990-1995 Professor of Law University of Strathclyde 1995-date Head of the Law School University of Strathclyde 2001-2007 Visiting Professor: University of Regensburg, Germany 1990 University of Vienna , Austria 1996 University of Sydney, Australia 1997 University of Cape Town, South Africa 2007-08 Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 2008-09 Degrees and Honours LLB: University of Dundee 1982 Diploma in Legal Practice: University of Dundee 1983 PhD: University of Aberdeen 1988 Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Patron, OUTRight Scotland Honorary President, Scottish Young Lawyers’ Association Law Teacher of the Year 2007 Selected Publications Kenneth Norrie has published widely in the fields of Scottish family law, delict (tort), private international law, with a particular focus on child protection law in Scotland. In recent years he has concentrated on the legal recognition of same-sex relationships, and especially the issue of international recognition.

Lucie Otahalova
Member for Czech Republic

Lucie Otáhalová holds a masters degree in law (2004). She had volunteered for a Czech LGBT organization, lobbying for the adoption for registered partnership law (adopted in 2006). She works as a head of the Secretariat of the Government Council for Human Rights, an advisory body to the Czech Government. As such, she worked on the establishment of a Committee for Sexual Minorities, one of the working groups of the Council. The major outcome of the Committee so far is the Analysis of the Situation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Minority in the Czech Republic (2007). She also worked on the preparation of the Antidiscrimination Law (adopted 2009) and is responsible for the implementation of EU directive against racial discrimination (2000/43/ES) into the legislation of the Czech Republic. She was a member of a number of delegations of the Czech Republic to the United Nations human rights committees (Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Human Rights Committee, and Human Rights Council). She works as a liaison officer to the EU Fundamental Rights Agency and The European Commission against Racism (ECRI, Council of Europe).
 

Lina Papadoupoulou
Member for Greece and Cyprus

Lina Papadopoulou was born on January,8th 1971 in Greece. She studied Law at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, took the LL.M. Master in Law at the University of Trier and her PhD (on European Political Parties) at the University of Hanover, Germany and she completed her studies with a MSc in Political Theory at the London School of Economics, where she also taught European Law and conducted Post-doctoral research as a Marie Curie Fellow in the area of European Constitutional Law on the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Since 2002 she has been teaching at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in the beginning at the Faculty of Political Science Department (European Studies) and since 2004 as a Lecturer of Hellenic and European Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law. She also teaches “Fundamental Issues of Law” at the Hellenic Open University. She has also taught for short periods at the Summer School on European Integration of the Agder University in Kristiansand (Norway) and the ‘Michail Psellos Master’s in European Integration and European Public Law’ in Istanbul. She has been a candidate for the European Parliament with PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) in 2009. Her main academic interests include: the European Constitution, equality and non-discrimination issues, fundamental rights and democracy and she has recently published a monograph (in Greek) on the relation between national constitutions and Community law.

Fergus Ryan
Member for Ireland

Fergus Ryan is a graduate and former scholar of Trinity College, University of Dublin, from which he holds an LL.B. (Hons.) (1995) and Ph.D. (2001). Currently, he is Head of the Department of Law (Acting) at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), a role that he has held since 2003. From 2002-2005, Fergus served as visiting lecturer in Family Law at the School of Law at Trinity College, Dublin. He has also worked as a visiting lecturer at the Law Society of Ireland and at University College Dublin’s Centre for Equality Studies. He is internship director for the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma Dublin Summer Programme and serves or has served as external examiner for the University of Ulster, Waterford Institute of Technology, Dublin Business School and Liverpool John Moores University. He is also a member of staff at the Centre for Transcultural Research and Media Practice at DIT.

Fergus is the author of several texts and journal articles, including Contract Law (Dublin: Thomson Round Hall, 2006) and Constitutional Law (Dublin: Thomson Round Hall, 2008) as well as co-author with Dug Cubie of Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Law in Ireland: Text, Cases and Materials (Dublin: Round Hall, 2004). He has completed commissioned reports for the Irish Human Rights Commission and for the Law Reform Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland. Fergus is also the co-author, with Judy Walsh, of The Rights of De Facto Couples (Dublin: Irish Human Rights Commission, 2006) and author of the report Civil Partnership; Your Questions Answered (Dublin: Gay and Lesbian Equality Network, 2009). A former President of the Irish Association of Law Teachers and a former Chairperson of One Family, Fergus appears regularly on national and local radio in Ireland, and has also testified before the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) on matters relating to Irish family law.

Jolanta Samuolyte
Member for Lithuania

Jolanta Samuolyte (Lithuania) is a Legal Director at the Human Rights Monitoring Institute. Her main interests include discrimination law, protection of vulnerable groups, promotion of human rights through litigation and legal advocacy. Before joining the HRMI, in 2005/2007 Jolanta worked at INTERIGHTS, the international centre for the legal protection of human rights based in London, assisting with the conduct of legal trainings for Central and Eastern Europe lawyers; and as a legal officer at the Civil Defense Fund in 2004, Lithuania. Jolanta holds a bachelor’s degree in European Union Law and International Comparative Law from the Concordia International University of Estonia (2002) in Tallinn, Estonia and LLM in Human Rights (2003) from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.

Alexander Schuster
Co-Member for Italia

Alexander Schuster holds a dual doctorate from Trento and from Strasbourg University with a thesis on gender-neutral family institutions (mention très bien avec félicitations) and an LL.M. from the European Public Law Organisation. He is the European coordinator of the EU co-funded project EQUAL JUS and the scientific director of the Lenford Research Centre in Florence established by the Italian network of lawyers in support of LGBT rights Avvocatura per i diritti LGBT. He is a post-doc researcher at the University of Udine and a lecturer in law at the University of Trento.

Alexander Schuster has coordinated major interdisciplinary researches, notably one for the Italian government on LGBT discrimination in the South of Italy. He is an Italian attorney as well as an independent legal expert of the EU Commission. He has taught and researched at universities and research centres in Trento, Lund, Montréal, Toronto, Washington, Athens, Strasbourg and Udine. His academic interests include fundamental rights, EU law and the new legal challenges posed by bioethical and technological research, such as access to reproductive technologies by LGBT people. He has published on various legal subjects ranging from American law to EU and comparative law in the field of constitutional law and biolaw. He is currently editing a book on same-gender parenthood.

Svyatoslav Sementsov
Member for Belarus

Svyatosav Sementsov is a Belarusian LGBT human rights expert and activist. Sementsov is founder and leader of TEMA (LGBT information center), founder of Vstrecha (HIV/AIDS and STD prevention among MSM), and founder and ex-coordinator of Amnesty International Belarus LGBT
Network. June 2008, Svyatoslav Sementsov got Rainbow Key Award from City Hall of West Hollywood (LA, USA).

Khalisa N. Shahverdiyeva
Member for Azerbaijan

Mrs. Shahverdiyeva was born in 1980 in Jabrayil District, Azerbaijan. In 2002 she graduated from the law faculty of Baku Asia University, Azerbaijan.
Since 2005 she is working in local and international NGO sector dealing with human rights, protection of women, children and disabled rights.
Mrs. Kh. Shahverdiyeva passed courses on domestic violence in USA and specialized on human trafficking, domestic violence and gender equality issues. Since 2009 she is the Project Director of the project “Legal aid to victims of trafficking human beings” funded by European Union and implemented by Women Bar Association.

Krzysztof Smiszek
Member for Poland, Co-Coordinator

Krzysztof Smiszek (1979) received his law degree in 2003 from the Faculty of Law and Administration of Warsaw University in Poland. In 2006 obtained his degree in European Law (Warsaw University, post-graduate studies). From 2003 until 2005 he worked as a lawyer at the Office of the Polish Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Status of Women and Men - national equality body responsible for combating discrimination. From 2005 until 2008 he worked as a senior legal specialist at the Polish Prime Minister Chancellery. Krzysztof Smiszek is a certified legal trainer of the EU anti-discrimination law. He cooperates with the Polish nationwide LGBT organization Campaign Against Homophobia where he heads the Legal Team. He has been involved as an adviser on law & equality to numerous Polish NGOs, trade unions and businesses. Krzysztof Smiszek is an author of a number of articles and papers on EU anti-discrimination legislation. He is a co-author (together with Karolina Kedziora) of the book “Bullying and discrimination at the workplace” (Warsaw 2008, C.H. Beck). He is the current Deputy President of the Polish Society of Anti-discrimination Law which brings together a range of Polish law practitioners, policy experts, lawyers of Polish human rights NGOs and academics interested in promotion and improving anti-discrimination legislation (www.ptpa.org.pl). Since 2008 he has been working as a Policy Officer in Equinet - the European Network of Equality Bodies (Brussels).

Renata Uitz
Member for Hungary

Renáta Uitz is associate professor of comparative constitutional law, chair of the Comparative Constitutional Law program and co-director (with Károly Bárd) of the clinical specialization at CEU Legal Studies. She obtained her Doctor iuris degree (with summa cum laude) at Eotvos Lorant University, Faculty of Law in 1996 and received an LLM in Comparative Constitutional Law at CEU Legal studies in the following year. Her S.J.D. (summa cum laude) in comparative constitutional law earned in 2001 is also from CEU Legal Studies. She started teaching at CEU in 2001, and became chair of the Comparative Constitutional Law program in 2007. Her teaching covers subjects in comparative constitutional law in Europe and North America, transitional justice and human rights protection with special emphasis on the enforcement of constitutional rights and on issues of bodily privacy and sexuality. Theories and practices of good governance in and after democratic transition, and the role of courts in constructing the constitutional subject are at the center of her research interests. "Constitutions, Courts and History" (2004) was her first book, while her most recent is "Freedom of Religion in European Constitutional and International Case Law" (2007). In addition she is the author of over 30 articles and book chapters which appeared mainly in English, Hungarian and Russian. She regularly speaks at international conferences on comparative constitutional subjects.

Carlos Villagrasa Alcaide  
Member for Spain, Andorra

Carlos Villagrasa Alcaide (born 1968), holds a Ph.D. Degree in Law (1998) and Postgraduate in Catalan Civil Law (2002). Since 1991 is Tenured Professor of Civil Law and Family Law at the Law Faculty, University of Barcelona, where he is also Director of Master on Family Law and Childhood since 1997: President of the Defense of Children and Adolescents' Rights Association; General Secretary of the Olof Palme International Foundation; Judge of the Provincial Court of Barcelona; Coordinator and Professor of Civil Law at the National University of Distance Education; Founding Member of the Commission for the Equality in the Rights of the Diverse Family Models at the Bar Association of Barcelona; Member of the Institute of Development and Analysis of Family Rights in Spain; Director of Legal Research at the Institute of Childhood and Urban World Consortium. He has specific experience in cooperation projects and he was appointed Senior Expert of the European Union to contribute on poverty, social exclusion and inclusion in Romania. Consultant for legislation reform about family law and children's rights with reports about partnership regulation (Parliament of Spain), Mediation, Family Code and Children's Law (Parliament of Catalonia) and Discrimination (Ministry of Equality of Spain). He has wrote more than 50 publications in books and reviews regarding Human Rights, Children and Adolescents' Rights, Family Law, Mediation, Discrimination, and LGTB Rights. He is research leader in four projects at the University and He is Visiting Professor in some Universities of Latin America, France, Italia and Portugal.

Kees Waaldijk
Member for the Netherlands

Kees Waaldijk holds a master degree in law from Erasmus University Rotterdam and a doctorate from the University of Maastricht. As Senior Lecturer and Director of PhD Studies he now works at the Graduate School of the Faculty of Law of Universiteit Leiden. Previously he taught law in Maastricht, Utrecht, Lancaster, Edinburgh and San Francisco. He has specialized in (Dutch, European, international and comparative) sexual orientation law, publishing on it in many languages. Most of his publications can be found at his website www.emmeijers.nl/waaldijk. In 1987 he published the first of his articles on the opening up of marriage. He was an adviser on various court cases, and a member of the Dutch Government's commission of legal experts advising on the opening up of civil marriage to same-sex couples (1996-1997). In 1994, together with Andrew Clapham, he edited the book Homosexuality: a European Community Issue. From 2002 to 2004 he coordinated the European Group of Experts on Combating Sexual Orientation Discrimination, which reported to the Commission of the European Communities, about the implementation of the Employment Equality Directive. In 2006 this led to the publication of the book Sexual orientation discrimination in the European Union, which he wrote together with Matteo Bonini-Baraldi. He is the main author of the report More or less together: Levels of legal consequences of marriage, cohabitation and registered partnership for different-sex and same-sex partners. A comparative study of nine European countries, published by the Institut National d’Etudes Démographiques in 2005.

www.emmeijers.nl/waaldijk
European Group of Experts on Combating Sexual Orientation Discrimination
Homosexuality: a European Community Issue
More or less together

In 2009 he contributed the article "Same-Sex Partnership, International Protection" to the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law.

Robert Wintemute
Member for Council of Europe, England & Wales and Gibraltar

Robert Wintemute is a Professor of Human Rights Law in the School of Law, King's College, University of London, where he teaches European Union Law, Human Rights Law, and Anti-Discrimination Law. Originally from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, he studied the common law of English-speaking Canada and the civil law of Québec at McGill University (Montréal). A member of the Bar of the State of New York, he practised Chapter 11 bankruptcy law with Milbank Tweed, before doing his doctorate in human rights law at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Sexual Orientation and Human Rights: The United States Constitution, the European Convention, and the Canadian Charter (Oxford University Press, 1997), and the editor (with honorary co-editor Mads Andenæs) of Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Partnerships: A Study of National, European and International Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2001). He is currently writing a book on Anti-Discrimination Law for Oxford University Press.

His pro bono legal work has included delivering or drafting oral arguments in Fretté v. France (European Court of Human Rights, 2002, eligibility of openly gay man to adopt a child), and Maruko (European Court of Justice, 2008, pension for surviving same-sex registered partner), as well as drafting third-party interventions (amicus curiae briefs) on international and comparative law on behalf of NGOs in such cases as Karner v. Austria (ECtHR, 2003, tenancy of apartment for surviving same-sex partner), Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, 2003, equal access to legal marriage for same-sex couples), and E.B. v. France (ECtHR, 2008, same issue as Fretté for lesbian woman). In Lawrence v. Texas (US Supreme Court, 2003), he advised the drafters of Yale Law School's intervention, which the majority cited in striking down laws banning oral or anal sexual activity in 13 states. He was a Senior Research Associate at Yale Law School in 2001, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2002. From 2002 to 2004, he was the United Kingdom expert in the European Commission's group of independent experts monitoring national implementation of the European Union's Council Directive 2000/78/EC (banning sexual orientation discrimination in employment and higher education).

At the global level, in July 2006, he served as Co-President of the largest-ever (1500-participant) "International Conference on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Human Rights", presented by the 1st World Outgames at Montréal's Palais des Congrès, and opened by Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In Nov. 2006, he was one of the experts invited to Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia, to draft "The Yogyakarta Principles on the application of International Human Rights Law in relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity". He has given lectures or seminars, or spoken at conferences or universities, in 28 countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Lebanon, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He also participated in Moscow Pride 2006.

Hans Ytterberg
Member for Sweden

Mr Hans Ytterberg was born in Stockholm in 1956. He has an LLM degree in law from the Universtity of Stockholm (1990), has served as a court of appeals judge and as a legal advisor to the Swedish Parliament's Advisory Committee on European Union Affairs. He was then recruited to the Ministry of Justice as legal advisor and in 1999 he was appointed Sweden's Ombudsman against Sexual Orientation Discrimination. Since that office was merged with others into a single Equality Ombudsman in 2009, he is attached to the Ministry for Integration and Gender Equality as Director General, mainly working on new disability rights legislation. He is currently chairing the Committee of Experts of the Council of Europe on Discrimination on grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (DH-LGBT) and is also a member of the European Commission's Group of Governmental Experts on Discrimination.