Upholding Human Rights

Herausgeber*innen: Kaitlyn Rice / Leonard Cusculeca Autor*innen: Elisabeth Bischofreiter She studied law at the University of Vienna and the University of Geneva, focusing on international and European law. After completing an internship at the Austrian Ombudsman Board she enrolled in the Master of Arts in Human Rights in Vienna. In the course of the Master programme, she gathered additional experience doing an internship at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) in Berlin. There she worked on the criminal accountability in Sri Lanka for war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the same time, Prof. Dr. Manfred Nowak, LL.M. was selected as independent expert to lead the new global study on the situation of children deprived of liberty. As Bischofreiter was already familiar with the overall situation in Sri Lanka - a country marked by a 26 year-long civil war - Prof. Dr. Nowak approached her with the idea of writing her thesis on children deprived of liberty in Sri Lanka. Bischofreiter was immediately enthusiastic about this suggestion, as this was a great chance to further immerse herself into the politics and cultural particularities of the Southeast Asian country and to look into the situation of those born after the civil war came to an end in 2009. Currently, Bischofreiter is a trainee lawyer at the law firm, "Breitenecker Kolbitsch Vana". Her main focus is the legal representation of victims of domestic violence and/or sexual offences in the criminal proceedings and family law. Elisa Klein Diaz She is a human rights practitioner holding a bachelor's degree in International Relations from the University Complutense of Madrid and a Master in Human Rights from the University of Vienna. During her Master Degree, she completed and internships at the legal department of UNHCR Austria and at the project management department from Transparency International in Germany. For her master thesis she decided to research the situation on trans children in Spanish schools after reading about a case were a transgender child was not allowed to change their name in school. This situation was pointed out by the media because the regulations vary depending on the region children live in, resulting in different treatments in the same country. This unfair situation moved Elisa to start conducting research on this topic and was the reason why she analysed all regional laws that existed in Spain up to June 2017. Since she finished her Master, she has worked for the Ludwig Boltzmann Institut for Human Rights and for the Austrian Ombudsman Board. She currently works at FIAN as a specialist on social rights, where she conducts research and works on international projects on the right to food. She also works for Amnesty International as a human rights educator, providing trainings to children and adults in Vienna. Khanita Meeyen She holds a bachelor degree in political science and joined the Master's programme from Thailand and she interned at the Royal Thai Embassy in Vienna. Lucas Palm He holds a bachelor in history and political science and a master in human rights at the Vienna University. He works as an author and editor for various publishers, newspaper and magazines. Ruggero Scaturro Is a young human rights practitioner who holds a bachelor's in International Relations from the University of Palermo and a Master of Arts in Human Rights. During an internship at the International Anti-Corruption Academy, he started developing a strong interest in anti-corruption studies. Since then, he has published numerous articles on the nexus between corruption and human rights, specifically in the context of the United Nations Conve