2023

Symposium and Annual General Meeting (AGM)
Saturday, 16 September 2023
in association with the 
Centre of African Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Venue: Brunei Lecture Theatre, SOAS
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG 

Welcome by Gill Lusk, SSSUK Chairperson

Dr Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker and Dr Lutz Oette, Justice after Serious Violations and International Crimes Committed in the War in Sudan

Dr Jan Pospisil, Elections in South Sudan: a pathway out of Transition?

Dr Abdelsalam Sidahmed, Politics in the Sudan: The Changing Political Map in Sudan: the case of the ‘mainstream’ parties, the Umma and the DUP.
Ali Abdel Latif, Political Parties and the Quest for a National Project.

Two short films directed and introduced by Florence Miettaux:

South Sudanese Women’s Traditional Roles and Empowerment in History, featuring Dr Anne Itto and Esther Soma. Discussant: Abiol Deng.
The Making of South Sudan’s Borders, featuring Dr Leben Moro and the late Dr Leonard Logo Mulukwat. Discussant: Douglas Johnson.

Speakers and Contributors

Dr Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker With a PhD from Nottingham University, Mohamed Babiker became Associate Professor of Law at Khartoum University. He has recently served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea.

Dr Lutz Oette is Professor of International Human Rights Law at SOAS, University of London, and Co-Director of the SOAS Centre for Human Rights Law. He has worked with NGOs, particularly REDRESS, and for two decades, with Sudanese counterparts on human rights, law and justice in Sudan.

Ali Abdel Latif is the Research, Training and Planning officer of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-Democratic Revolutionary Current (SPLM-DRC). He worked for many years in education, including teaching in universities and colleges in West Yorkshire.

Florence Miettaux is a freelance film-maker and journalist who began working in Juba in 2010. The film Our Search for Peace: Women in South Sudan’s National Peace Processes features Dr Anne Itto (South Sudan’s Representative at the East African Legislative Assembly) and Esther Soma (UN Women, author of “Our Search for Peace: Women in South Sudan’s National Peace Processes); the film The Making of South Sudan’s Borders features Dr Leben Moro (University of Juba) and the late Dr Leonard Logo Mulukwat (Agricultural Economist, and former member of the South Sudan-Uganda Border Commission).

Jan Pospisil is Associate Professor (Research) at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University, and co-investigator in the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), Edinburgh University. In 2018-22, he was research director at the Austrian Centre for Peace in Stadtschlaining. He works on processes of enduring transition in armed conflict, and the transition processes in South Sudan and Sudan.

Dr Abdelsalam Sidahmed holds a PhD in political science and has taught at the universities of Cambridge and Durham, UK, and at Windsor, Canada. He has worked for Amnesty International, the UN Human Rights Office and as Senior Human Rights Advisor to Premier Abdallah Hamdok and the Minister of Justice in Sudan’s transitional government, 2020-21.