Humphrey Fellowship Program

MOHAMMED ABDULQADER ALSHUWAITER is a legal scholar at the Ministry of Justice in the Republic of Yemen, conducting research and studies related to legislations, and participating in preparing legal initiatives related to human rights. Alshuwaiter previously worked as an Islamic law lecturer and as a constitutional assistant. He holds a bachelor’s degree in law from the University of Science and Technology in Yemen and a master’s degree in jurisprudence from Al-Eman University in Yemen. He is currently a PhD candidate for a degree in philosophy of law from the University of Malaya in Malaysia. Alshuwaiter hopes that the theoretical and practical experiences gained in the United States will help him to introduce legal philosophy into Yemen’s legal institutions and initiate new legal projects.

HAKAN ARIKAN is a chief inspector to the Board of Inspection of the Ministry of Interior in Turkey, and investigates complaints and allegations about law enforcement officials, mayors, and governors and inspects them periodically. He used to coordinate some of the European Union projects on behalf of the Ministry of Interior.  Previously, Arikan was a district governor of Ministry of Interior for seven years, and was a deputy legislative expert in Grand National Assembly in 1992. He holds a bachelor’s degree in public administration from Ankara University in Turkey, and a master’s degree in social policy and administration from Nottingham University in the United Kingdom. Arikan is passionate about human rights, corruption prevention, civilian oversight of law enforcement, and intelligence law. He hopes to examine the legal academic background of the law enforcement complaint mechanisms and other similar civilian oversight mechanisms including intelligence in the U.S., enabling him to assist and support his studies in preparing the secondary legislation in Turkey.

FOLLY GNAVO ATTIVI has a Bachelor and Master of Laws and an admission to practice law from University of Lomé in Togo. He is a lawyer for the Etude Maitre Mawuvi A. MOUKE law firm in Togo, defending and counselling citizens before judicial jurisdictions such as correctional, civil, and labor courts. His major areas of interest are comparative law and legal aid systems. He wishes to learn from American practices and experiences to help develop a process for more efficient law making, and establish a system of legal services providing individuals with the opportunity to defend their cases in the court of law.

SRDJAN BLAGOVCANIN is the executive director of Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He manages the operations of the organization and conducts various research and surveys. Blagovcanin is a specialist in the field of rule of law, anti-corruption reforms, policies, and legislation, authoring a number of studies and analyses on the topics. He has worked with the World Bank, USAID, Global Integrity, and many other international and national organizations and institutions.  During the fellowship, he hopes to gain broader knowledge on the workings of the U.S. political system, with particular focus on the decision-making process.

A. E. M. ISMAIL HOSSAIN is a Joint District and Sessions Judge for the Bangladesh Judicial Service. As a mid-level judge, he tries both civil and criminal cases including civil and family appeals. He previously worked as a Senior Assistant Judge, a Judicial Magistrate and a Metropolitan Magistrate in Dhaka. Before joining the judiciary in 2006, he worked as a lecturer in law at the Premier University Chittagong in Bangladesh. He was admitted to the bar in his country in 2004. Hossain earned both a bachelor’s and master’s in law from the University of Chittagong in Bangladesh, a master’s in criminology and criminal justice from King’s College London and also a bachelor’s in law from the University of London, England.  He is a British Chevening Scholar and Fellow (2008) of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute (CJEI), Canada. Hossain’s main areas of interest are law and human rights and he would like to study the U.S. criminal justice system, specifically the prosecution system, plea bargaining, sentencing practices, and case management.

EKA KHUTSISHVILI is a criminal law analyst for the Georgian Young Lawyers Association. She works to promote judicial independence and impartiality in Georgia and represents the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association in the Criminal Justice Reform Inter-Agency Coordination Council, participating in activities to improve the Criminal Law environment of Georgia. Previously, Khutsishvili was a parliamentary intern for the National Democratic Institute and is a former probationary prosecutor. Khutsishvili earned both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s of Law from Tbilisi State University. Her major area of interest is human rights protection within the criminal justice system. Through the Humphrey Fellowship program, she hopes to gain in-depth theoretical knowledge of the U.S. criminal justice system and wishes to strengthen her leadership skills to successfully advocate and lobby proposed development plans by the human rights organizations and civil society as a whole. Using her education, she also hopes to encourage civil society engagement and NGO sector participation.

JACKLINE MWENDE MWANTHI has a master’s degree in human rights and has worked as a senior program coordinator for Kituo Cha Sheria (Centre for Legal Empowerment) in Kenya where she was in charge of the prison/ community paralegals, advocacy, and governance.  She has also been a director of programs for a girls/young women empowerment and sports development organization and has worked with Justice Africa UK and Youth Agenda Kenya (YAK). Mwende is a former fellow of Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) and a Justice Innovator for the Innovating Justice Program of The Hague Institute for the Internationalization of Law (HiiL).  Apart from gender and women rights, her other main interest is interrogating the consequences of unfair criminal justice system to development and human rights. She hopes that the fellowship will provide the opportunity to establish relationships and networks with institutions that deal with rights of detainees, and gain insights on how the U.S. tackle challenges of access to justice.

GULMIRA SHAKIRALIEVA is a national advocacy adviser for the Public Fund "SOS Children's Villages Kyrgyzstan." Some of her duties include implementation of the SOS child protection policy within the organization, lobbying the rights of young people leaving care, and developing recommendations for legislation improvement. Her primary focus is the legal regulation and practice of child rights and international human rights mechanisms. She is particularly interested in the social protection of families in difficult life situations and of children in need of care to prevent child abandonment. Shakiralieva hopes to gain knowledge in legislation and practice related to child protection to implement in Kyrgyzstan.

MIN-HWAN SHIN, also known as Patrick, is a lecturer of public security department for the Police Training Institute (PTI) in Republic of Korea. He teaches field officers advanced level knowledge and to conduct research on police-related problems. Shin previously worked in different police stations and police agencies as a director of public security division, a Police troop commander, a litigation officer, and a liaison officer of NCB Seoul. He holds a bachelor’s degree in public administration from Korean National Police University, and is a master’s candidate of forensic science from SoonChunHyang University in Korea. His major area of concern as a police officer is to combat sex-related crimes within society. He firmly believes that police investigators and policy makers should have an in-depth understanding of what constitutes a sex crime to deal with the matter effectively.

RAUL SILVA TELLES DO VALLE has worked at Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), in Brazil, for the past 14 years and was the coordinator of the Public Policy and Law Program for the past 5 years.  ISA is one of the most important non-profit organization in Brazil working to promote environmental and human rights in the country.  As the coordinator of the program, he advocated for public policies and proposed changes in legislation before Congress to ensure that policies put forward are relevant to their constituencies. Formerly an environmental law professor and a consultant, Valle earned a bachelor's in law and a master's in law and economics, with a focus on environmental law, from the University of São Paulo in Brazil.  He is interested in studying the relationship between law, economics, and environmental science, the link between environmental and agricultural policies, and how the U.S. and other countries balance the expansion of agriculture and the protection of the environment.