Meet the Team

Mariana Goetz

Founder

Mariana is a human rights practitioner with over 20 years experience in post conflict justice, including at the Rwanda Tribunal and Special Court for Sierra Leone, where she was a Legal Adviser. More recently she was Head of Programmes at Aegis Trust, and Deputy Director of REDRESS where she had been its Post Conflict Justice Adviser working on transitional justice cases and projects with affected communities in DRC, Northern Uganda, Kenya, Central African Republic. See more.

Najlaa El Khalifa

Legal Advisor

Najlaa is a Legal Consultant working with Rights for Peace on research into hate speech in Sudan. Previously, she was Acting Executive Director for Sudanese Rights Group as well as Human Rights Officer and Consultant for the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies where she specifically investigated torture in Sudan. Najlaa has further experience working at Human Rights Watch researching Sudanese women human rights defenders and at REDRESS as their Sudan Project Officer and coordinating their Criminal Laws Reform project and Prohibition of Torture in Sudan. 

Abhaya Ganashree

Legal Intern

Abhaya studied Law at the University of Leeds where she was also the Editor-in-Chief of the Human Rights Journal and a Laidlaw Research Scholar within the School's Disability Law Clinic. Abhaya is currently working as a Research Assistant to Professor Tanya Aplin at King's College London and is working with Rights for Peace in putting together a practitioner's guide on hate crimes. 

Jessica Shields

Research Assistant

Jessica is a graduate of Biology from the University of Leeds, with research experience from ETH Zurich. She studied Political and Social Sciences in Rabat, Morocco, writing on homosexuality in the 15th century Arab-Islamic world. She has worked in Athens providing advice and support on asylum and is currently assisting Rights for Peace with research on hate speech incidents.

Anita Pant

Communications and Projects Assistant

Anita recently graduated from Oxford University with a master's degree in Russian and East European Studies, specialising in conflicts over language, memory and identity in the post-Soviet space. She is a former editor of the St Antony's International Review and is currently assisting Rights for Peace with blogs, web content and the Write for Peace project. 

Amy Leigh

Projects and Fundraising Assistant

Amy recently graduated from the University of East Anglia with a First in International Relations and Politics, specialising in International responses to conflict and terrorism studies. She was a member of the SweatshopFreeUEA campaign team focusing on the prevention of human rights breaches in the supply chain for university purchased technology, and is currently assisting Rights for Peace with fundraising and project development.

Cara Priestly

Advocacy Officer

Cara has worked in the UK and internationally in campaigns, policy, research and coordination roles in the areas of civilian protection, human rights, peacebuilding and disarmament. Most recently, she has worked in Geneva at the UK Mission to the UN and the Quaker United Nations Office. She has an MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights, and a BA in History with Middle East Studies. She is assisting Rights for Peace with making connections to ongoing policy debates or processes internationally, particularly in relation to the best use of international human rights approaches in upstream prevention of mass atrocities