2012 has
been an exciting year for Banyan, and as we begin our first full year, we would
like to give you a quick summary of our activities so far:
April 2012
saw the official creation of Banyan: SOAS Advocates, with an extremely
successful opening event on 23rd April. “Putting your degree into action” saw a number of speakers from
legal, NGO and academic backgrounds discuss the many ways students could
demonstrate their abilities and experience, encouraging them to make the most
of opportunities to apply their skills in practice on different research
projects in a range of environments.
Since then,
Banyan has offered a series of exciting opportunities to postgraduate students
at SOAS.
In August 2012, the Revenue Watch
Institute (RWI) asked Banyan to build a team of several students to work with
RWI in supporting the implementation of the government of Guinea’s new mining
code. The students have helped the government in ongoing negotiations and drafted
research reports on different mining companies.
In the same month three Banyan students joined
the MSI Project, an NGO monitoring the human rights impacts of
multi-stakeholder initiatives. They wrote reports analysing some of these
initiatives and helped generate recommendations to improve their adherence to human
rights standards.
In November 2012, the Aegis Trust
came to Banyan via Dr Chandra Sriram from the SOAS School of Law. Four
postgraduate students are researching and drafting a report regarding Sudan and
the ICC, which should be available by mid-February 2013.
Banyan is
in the process of creating a team to work on a case with human rights
solicitors Deighton Pierce Glynn. Deighton are particularly interested in
Banyan’s multi-lingual membership as the case relates to immunity for torture
prosecution and a leading official in an Arabic speaking country.
Finally, Dr Lutz Oette at SOAS has asked Banyan to
recruit a single student to collaborate with the African Centre for Justice and
Peace on a major report focused on Sudan.
As you can tell, this year has been an exciting one for
Banyan and its members, something we’re hoping to continue this in 2013. If you'd like to get involved in running Banyan and working alongside out partner organisations, please contact us at soas@banyan-advocates.co.uk.
We hope everyone has an excellent 2013!
Luke, Jess and Deval
