Mandela The Lawyer, Reconsidered: Law at the Crossroads of Justice and Oppression

Siyabulela Mandela is a scholar, public speaker, and human rights activist. He has served as a Regional Project Manager (East and Southern Africa) at Journalists for Human Rights and previously led the organization's South Sudan office, supporting media development, human rights, and peace-building initiatives. He holds a PhD in International Relations and Conflict Resolution and an MPhil in Conflict Transformation and Management from Nelson Mandela University. Raised in Qunu in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, Dr. Mandela's work focuses on diplomacy, African politics, conflict resolution, and sustainable development. He has published and spoken internationally on human rights, peace, and post-conflict reconstruction.

Ed Béchard-Torres is an assistant professor in the Lincoln Alexander School of Law. Prof. Bechard-Torres is broadly interested in the relationship between constitutional law and political economy. His research projects have taken up how courts can contribute to the fulfillment of socio-economic human rights, and how “transformative” constitutional projects can influence commercial and corporate law. His research is comparative and bridges jurisdictions in the Global “South” and “North”. Prior to joining the law school, Prof. Béchard-Torres was a Scholar in Residence at New York University’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. He holds a DCL from McGill University, an LLM from the University of Cambridge, and a joint BCL/LLB from McGill. He is from Montreal and is Venezuelan-Canadian. 

Jake Okechukwu Effoduh is an assistant professor at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law. Prof. Effoduh has gained significant expertise in international human rights advocacy at various ranks of domestic, regional, and international legal systems. He has also informed the regulatory frameworks and policy formulation on artificial intelligence (AI) both for supranational organizations and domestic institutions in several countries including the United States, Brazil, and Nigeria. Prior to joining Lincoln Alexander Law, Effoduh served as Chief Counsel of Africa – Canada AI and Data Innovation Consortium, mobilizing AI and big data techniques to build governance strategies. He is also the project coordinator of Canada’s Rights Role in Sub-Saharan Africa, a multi-year interdisciplinary SSHRC-funded partnership between Canada and several African countries. Effoduh has held multiple academic fellowships including at the Centre for Law, Technology, and Society at the University of Ottawa; the Harvard Library Innovation Lab of Harvard Law School; the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance of the University of Cape Town; and the Center for Human Rights Science of Carnegie Mellon University.

Uchechukwu (Uche) Ngwaba worked as a sessional lecturer in three Australian Universities (Macquarie University, University of Western Sydney, Deakin University) prior to joining the Lincoln Alexander School of Law. Prof. Ngwaba's research engages multi-disciplinary, comparative and socio-legal methods in exploring complex questions affecting health governance frameworks in the Global North and South. He draws appropriately from multiple disciplines (law, humanities, economics, medicine, etc.) to redefine problems outside disciplinary boundaries and explore solutions based on shared understandings of complex situations in the area of health. His work in the area of transitional justice engages Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) as a useful theoretical lens for critical internationalism to interrogate claims about universalism in the pursuit of international criminal justice, whilst pushing for better representation for the subaltern in international thought and action.

Udoka Ndidiamaka Owie is currently an adjunct professor at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law, where she has taught Law and Injustice, Constitutional Law, Torts Law and currently teaches International Criminal Law. She holds a PhD in International Law and an LLM (Distinction) in International Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She earned her LLB from the University of Nigeria and her B.L. from the Nigerian Law School. She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Nathanson Centre for Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security Studies, Osgoode Hall Law School, under a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant. Dr. Owie has held the distinguished Harry Arthurs Fellowship at Osgoode Hall Law School (York University) where she has also served as a Visiting Professor. She regularly guest lectures at Osgoode Hall School of Law, the School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University, the University of Pretoria and the University of South Africa. She actively publishes in her field, and her research has been widely published in leading international journals, including a prize-winning policy paper on Gender Mainstreaming in International Peace and Security.