Fellows

Nathaniel KHNG
FICHL Fellow
April 2014 -

Nathaniel KHNG currently serves as a Deputy Senior State Counsel and Deputy Public Prosecutor in the Attorney-General’s Chambers of Singapore. He previously was a senior associate in the International Arbitration Group of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. His experience includes international commercial and investor-State arbitrations, and also pro bono refugee and international criminal law-related advisory work. He has also held the judicial position of Assistant Registrar of the Supreme Court of Singapore and was a Justices’ Law Clerk for the Chief Justice of Singapore and other Justices of the Supreme Court of Singapore. He has a Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honors from Melbourne Law School. He also has a Master of Laws from the Yale Law School, where he was research assistant to Professor W. Michael Reisman.

Kristin WU
FICHL Fellow
April 2014 -

Kristin WU graduated B.A. cum laude from Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She was a student of the Transnational Law Programme in co-operation with Washington University in Saint Louis School of Law. She was one of the nine ‘young talents’ nominated by The Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law (HiiL) for the 4th Law of the Future Conference, and one of the nine students nominated by Utrecht University for the 2011 League of European Research Universities BRIGHT Conference. She was also one of the nine finalists at the Inaugural Benjamin B. Ferencz International Essay Competition. Kristin has published articles in journals and books, and has presented at various conferences. Her research interest covers international criminal law, human rights, environmental law, sustainability governance as well as science, technology and innovation policy. She has worked at the Institute of Legal Theory (Utrecht University), Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, and National Environment Agency, Singapore.

ZHONG Yuxiang
FICHL Fellow
March 2014 -

ZHONG Yuxiang is currently an undergraduate student in China Foreign Affairs University, specialising in international law. He participated as team leader in the national round of the International Criminal Court Trial Competition (2014), and won the Winning Prize, the Prize of Best Memorial and the Prize of Best Counsel for Prosecutor. He also participated in the 7th Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Moot (2013), and won the First Prize and the First Honorable Submission for Defendant. He won a National Scholarship in 2013 and was selected as a role model in 2013 by Ministry of Education of China.

SHI Bei
FICHL Fellow
March 2013 -

Shi Bei is currently a Master candidate in international law at Peking University Law School. She is also enrolled in the Human Rights Master Programme cooperated by the Research Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law of the Peking University Law School (PULS) and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law of Lund University, Sweden (RWI). She has participated as a team member in the national round of the 2013 Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, and won the prize of ‘Best Oralist’. She passed the National Judicial Examination of China (national bar examination) in 2011 and got an LL.B. degree from Southwest University of Political Science and Law in 2012.

Catia Lopes
FICHL Fellow
January 2013 -

Cátia Lopes has worked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for several years in the Gaza Strip and also worked on Refugee Status Determination with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Bangkok, Thailand. She has focused her work on legal and humanitarian affairs, human rights and project management. She was awarded a distinction for her LL.M. degree at King’s College London having written her dissertation on the complementarity of the International Criminal Court and its impact on the impunity gap. During her studies, she also co-wrote a chapter of a book analyzing “Individuals as Subjects of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law” (International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law: Towards a New Merger in International Law, Brill, Netherlands, 2008). Learning that there was no space to create a human rights society at Kings College London, she proactively co-founded the UCL Student Human Rights Programme at University College London. This is an ongoing student-led human rights organization, which seeks to foster a vibrant culture of human rights within UCL and wider communities by initiating awareness, instigating debate and inspiring action. She has a passion for human rights and criminology and is interested in academia and continuing her work in the field of humanitarian affairs.

ZHANG Yueyao
FICHL Fellow
November 2012 -

ZHANG Yueyao holds an LL.B. degree from Peking University and is an LL.M. candidate at Peking University and UC Berkeley, respectively specializing in public international law and commercial law. She participated in the Human Rights Master Programme cooperated by the Research Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law of the Peking University Law School (PULS) and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law of Lund University, Sweden (RWI). She is a member of the Red Cross Society, China (from October 2007) and is an editor of Peking University International Law and Comparative Law Review (from November 2012).

QIAO Congrui
FICHL Fellow
November 2012 -

QIAO Congrui is currently a master candidate in human rights law and in communication study at Peking University, China. She gained a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism and an LL.B. in International Affairs from Peking University in 2011. She has interned with Front Line Defenders (an international NGO for human rights defenders) and China Central Television (the state broadcasting system, assisting with 48 episodes on socially controversial incidents and figures). Her goal is to work for an independent international media and report on Chinese problems and progress from an insider's perspective.

ZHANG Kangle
FICHL Fellow
November 2012 –

ZHANG Kangle holds a bachelor's degree in international politics from Peking University, specializing in international relations and international organizations. He is currently pursuing a Juris Master degree at Peking University Law School, majoring in public international law.

Ian Kennedy
FICHL Fellow
November 2012 –

Ian Kennedy is currently a judicial clerk for the Chief Justice of the British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver, Canada. He also has an ongoing fellowship with the Canadian Centre of International Justice. He previously worked for the Trial Chamber in the Ratko Mladić case before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and for the B.C. Civil Liberties Association on a case regarding the treatment of Afghan detainees before the Canadian Military Police Complaints Commission. He holds a JD and an MA from the University of Toronto, where he received the Macdonald Prize in Public International Law and was published in the University of Toronto Law Review. He also holds a diploma from the Center of Transnational Legal Studies in London, England.

María Luisa Piqué
FICHL Fellow
December 2010 –

María Luisa Piqué has a law degree from the University of Buenos Aires, Faculty of Law, and is an LL.M. candidate (2011) from Georgetown University Law Center. Before joining the LL.M. program at Georgetown, she co-ordinated the team of young lawyers who assisted in the prosecutions of several members of the Argentinean Armed and Security Forces involved in crimes against humanity committed during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, in the Navy's Mechanics School (ESMA), in the "Orletti Motors" detention center, and within the Operation Condor - the co-ordinated repressive effort of the Southern Cone military governments.

Annika Jones
FICHL Fellow
March 2010 –

Mats Benestad
FICHL Fellow
January 2010 –

Mats Benestad started his professional career at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2010, and worked both at the field office in Iran and at headquarters in Vienna. In 2012, he joined the Legal Department of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he focused on anti-terrorism and sanctions law. Between 2016 and 2019, Benestad worked at the Norwegian Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Vienna, before serving as the deputy head of mission at the Norwegian Embassy in Reykjavik, Iceland. Benestad holds a law degree from the University of Bergen, specializing in international law (American University, Washington, D.C.) and international criminal law (University in Oslo). He did his master thesis on prosecutorial discretion at the International Criminal Court.