This monitoring site is a project of the Open Society Justice Initiative
The Open Society Justice Initiative, an operational program of the Open Society Institute, pursues law reform activities grounded in the protection of human rights, and contributes to the development of legal capacity for open societies worldwide. The Justice Initiative combines litigation, legal advocacy, technical assistance, and the dissemination of knowledge to secure advances in the following priority areas: national criminal justice, international justice, freedom of information and expression, and equality and citizenship. Its offices are in Abuja, Budapest, London, New York, and Washington D.C.
Alpha Sesay
The Justice Initiative’s full-time monitor of the Taylor trial is Alpha Sesay, a human rights lawyer from Sierra Leone. He holds a law degree from Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone and an LL.M in International human rights law from the University of Notre Dame, USA. Mr. Sesay has worked with several local and international NGOs including Human Rights Watch, International Center for Transitional Justice, Campaign for Good Governance, Post Conflict Reintegration Initiative for Development and Empowerment (PRIDE) and Defence for Children International. He is founding president of the Fourah Bay College Human Rights Clinic and former National Director of the Sierra Leone Court Monitoring Program. He has also worked with the Defence Office of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Mr. Sesay has presented several papers at conferences, workshops, and trainings and has undertaken extensive research on issues relating to human rights and transitional justice in Africa. He is a member of the Sierra Leone Bar Association. He started working on the Charles Taylor Trial Monitoring Program in April 2008.
The Justice Initiative is partnering with the War Crimes Studies Center (WCSC), a nonprofit center that supports and analyzes the work of internationalized criminal tribunals and human rights courts in Sierra Leone, Indonesia, East Timor, and Cambodia. Founded in December 2000 at the University of California at Berkeley, the WCSC serves as a major public information resource for the trial records of national and international war crimes trials conducted by more than twenty countries in Europe, Asia, and the Pacific in the aftermath of World War II. Its activities include trial monitoring, the production of community outreach films, judicial exchanges, and legal training.
This project has also gratefully received research assistance from White & Case LLP. The International Senior Lawyers Project and Clifford Chance LLP previously collaborated on this project.
