Announcing new Associate and Emeritus Fellows of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights

Professor Kate O'Regan

Kate O'Regan was the inaugural Director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and a former judge of the South African Constitutional Court (1994 – 2009). In the mid-1980s she practiced as a lawyer in Johannesburg in a variety of fields, but especially labour law and land law, representing many of the emerging trade unions and their members, as well as communities threatened with eviction under apartheid land laws. She has served as an ad hoc judge of the Supreme Court of Namibia (from 2010 - 2016) and as Chairperson of the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry into allegations of police inefficiency and a breakdown in trust between the police and the community of Khayelitsha (2012 – 2014). 

Dr Halefom Abraha was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, working on the project ‘iMANAGE - Rethinking Employment Law for a World of Algorithmic Management’ (2021-2024). His research interests include AI regulation and workers’ digital rights, particularly the interplay between labour law and data protection in digital labour environments. Halefom is now an Assistant Professor with the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) at Utrecht University. 

Ekaterina (Katya) Aristova is an academic and lawyer specialising in business and human rights, climate change, and strategic litigation. She joined Surrey Law School as a Senior Lecturer in Private Law in 2025 after six years at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, where she remains an Associate Fellow. Katya is also an Academic Fellow of Middle Temple and author of Tort Litigation against Transnational Corporations (OUP 2024).

Formerly a Fellow in Law at Wadham College, Dr Oliver Butler provided teaching and experienced oversight and pastoral care for Wadham’s law students, working in association with the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights (2017-2021). While at Oxford, he specifically worked within the field of civil and political rights law, with a focus on emerging digital rights.

Oliver is now Assistant Professor in Law, at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham, where he is a co-director of the Law and Tech Research Centre.  

Dr Lisa Hsin was the inaugural Helsby-Kroll Postdoctoral Fellow in Business and Human Rights (2022-2023) and the Modern Slavery Fellow (2020-2021) at the Bonavero Institute. She founded and convened the Oxford Business and Human Rights Research Network and Discussion Group (2018-2022) and held a JRF at Corpus Christi College. Lisa is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Surrey and researches contemporary issues in commercial law, including human rights compliance in corporate practice.

Dr Tarun Khaitan is the former Head of Research at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford (2021-2023) and Professor of Public Law and Legal Theory at the Faculty of Law at Oxford. Tarun was also a Fellow at Mansfield College, an Honorary Professorial Fellow at Melbourne Law School, and a Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He serves as Professor (Chair) of Public Law at the London School of Economics. He specialises in legal theory, constitutional studies, and discrimination law.  

Dr Liora Lazarus served as the Head of Research at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights (2018-2020). During her time at Oxford, she was a Fellow in Law at St. Anne's College and Associate Professor in Law. She is now a Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. Liora’s expertise sits at the interface between security, the rule of law, and human rights. 

Dr Daniella Lock worked as postdoctoral fellow at the Bonavero Institute for Human Rights (2022-2025), preparing case studies for the Symposium on Strength and Solidarity alongside her research on executive power and democracy. Before working at the Bonavero Institute, she completed a PhD in national security law at UCL and an undergraduate degree in philosophy and politics at LSE. 

Dr Naomi Lott is Lecturer in Law at the University of Reading, and was previously both John Fell Research Fellow and ECR Postdoctoral Fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights (2022-2024). Naomi is a leading children’s rights academic, with particular expertise on children’s right to play. Her work on the right to play is informing the work of third sector organisations, national debates on children’s rights, play and wellbeing across the UK and internationally, and is influencing the work of schools and healthcare organisations. 

Dr Richard Mackenzie-Gray Scott was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and St Antony’s College, Oxford (2022-2025), where his research was funded by the British Academy, focussing on the challenges and opportunities presented by existing and emerging digital technologies to human rights and democratic governance. His work is across human rights, digital technologies, constitutional studies and international law and relations, comprising research, teaching, policy engagement and legal practice. 

Dr Annelen Micus served as inaugural Head of Programmes of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford to foster exchange between academia and practice (2017-2021). She now serves as Co-Director of the Institute for Legal Intervention at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. She also worked with Amnesty International Germany and the Lawyers’ Collective José Alvear Restrepo (CAJAR) in Colombia, focusing on business and human rights as well as climate justice. 

Michael Molavi served as Access to Civil Justice Research Fellow at the Bonavero Institute (2018-2022). He is now an Associate Professor in Lund University’s Sociology of Law Department. His research spans several areas in sociology of law with a focus on legal mobilisation, lawfare, access to justice, and legal group formations across diverse socio-juridical contexts. 

Dr Maayan Niezna was previously Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Modern Slavery and Human Rights at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights (2022-2024). She now is a Lecturer at the University of Liverpool’s School of Law and Social Justice. Maayan's socio-legal research focuses on trafficking for labour exploitation, the regulation of labour migration, and the rights of non-citizens. Her work on trafficking and exploitation has been cited by courts, policymakers, NGOs, and national media. 

Dr Martin Scheinin served as British Academy Global Professor at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights between 2020-2025. During his time at the Institute, he worked on the project “Addressing the Digital Realm through the Grammar of Human Rights Law” and contributed to teaching, supervision and Bonavero Reports. He is a part-time professor of international human rights Law at the European University Institute and at Lund University.   

Dr Stefan Theil was the inaugural Research Fellow in Civil and Political Rights at the Bonavero Institute, University of Oxford (2017-2021). Stefan is Assistant Professor in Public Law and a Fellow and Director of Studies at Sidney Sussex College. Stefan’s research interests are broadly in the field of public and constitutional law, as well as human rights and legal methodology.