Yasmin Sooka

A human rights lawyer and the current Chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights for South Sudan. She is the former Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights in South Africa and a trustee of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre.

She was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and graduated from the University of Witwatersrand. She is regarded as an expert on transitional justice, gender and international war crimes.

She was member of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a member of the United Nations Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka to investigate war crimes in the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War, and currently serves as the Chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.