Biographies of the members of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran

Sara Hossain, chair (Bangladesh)

Sara Hossain is a barrister in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh practising in constitutional, public interest and family law. She is a partner in the law firm of Dr. Kamal Hossain and Associates and serves pro bono as the Honorary Executive Direct of the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust. In 2016, she was appointed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as one of the two experts on accountability to support the work of the Special Rapporteur on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Ms. Hossein serves on the Advisory Committee of the Women’s International Coalition of Gender Justice and has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Trust Fund for Victims of Torture since 2017. In 2018-2019, Ms. Hossain also served on the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. She was educated at Wadham College, Oxford University, United Kingdom, and called to the Bar from Middle Temple in 1989. Sara is currently Professor of Practice at SOAS, University of London.

Viviana Krsticevic (Argentina)

Viviana Krsticevic has an LL.B. from the University of Buenos Aires, an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Stanford University, and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School.

She has litigated extensively on behalf of victims of human rights violations in Latin America. She has appeared before the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights, arguing pioneering cases on the legal framework for accountability, gender-based violence, civic space, victims’ rights, indigenous peoples, reparations, and social and economic rights. She has helped shape international human rights standards in key areas through her litigation, advocacy, and writing. Ms. Krsticevic has intervened as amicus curiae before numerous national courts in the Americas, as well as regional human rights tribunals, including the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the European Court on Human Rights.

Ms. Krsticevic regularly teaches at the American University Washington College of Law, through its Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. She has also taught, lectured, and participated in conferences at universities and think tanks throughout the Americas, and Europe. She has participated in several conferences and has done research at the Max Planck Institute on Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg. Ms. Krsticevic has published extensively on human rights and international law.

She is currently the Executive Director of the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), a civil society organization that works throughout the Americas to promote human rights using international law and the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights. Ms. Krsticevic is also a member of the drafting committee of the international protocol on the investigation of threats against human rights defenders launched in 2021, known as the La Esperanza Protocol. She is also a founder and member of the Gqual Campaign, a global initiative to promote gender parity in international representation.

Max du Plessis (South Africa) 

Mr. du Plessis is a South African barrister (and senior counsel in South Africa) and academic whose career has been characterised by his involvement on justice and human rights issues. He has a Bachelor of Laws from the University of South Africa and LL.B from the University of Natal (South Africa), completed his Master of Laws at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and completed his PhD studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa).

His legal career began in 2000 when he became an advocate at the High Court of South Africa. His expertise in international, administrative, and constitutional law led to a role as a senior research fellow in the International Crime in Africa Programme at the Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, and an associate fellow in international law at Chatham House, London. Mr. du Plessis is a member of Doughty Street Chambers, London, and has been a visiting expert at the International Criminal Court.

Throughout his career Mr. du Plessis has also been involved in academia, including as an associate professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and most recently as an adjunct professor at the University of Cape Town and Nelson Mandela University. As a visiting fellow or professor, he has taught, researched or given visiting lectures at multiple institutions, including the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, University of Oxford (United Kingdom), St. John’s College, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), the University of Sydney (Australia), the London School of Economics (United Kingdom), Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University (United States), New York Law School (United States), and others.