Human Rights Centre - Personnel

Name:

Leena Leikas

My place of work/post: 

Expert at the Human Rights Centre and Deputy to the Director of the Centre, Secretary of the Human Rights Delegation, Chair of the ENNHRI Legal Working Group (since 2019).

About me: 

I am a Master of Laws trained on the bench. Expert at the Human Rights Centre since 2012. 

After court service and a stint in the Ministry of Justice’s Law Drafting Department where I dealt with EU issues involving criminal and procedural law, I moved to the Legal Department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (now Legal Service). In this post, my tasks included drafting Finnish Government responses to appeals to the European Court of Human Rights, participation in negotiations and deliberations of working groups in the Council of Europe and the United Nations, and in periodic reporting. I have worked as a lawyer in the European Court of Human Rights, and in the Human Rights Review Panel’s liability and appeals mechanisms of the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX). During my leave of absence, I served for about three years in the Council of Europe Secretariat as an expert on fundamental and human rights monitoring, national minorities and persons with disabilities. I have also accumulated substantial expertise on the justice and home affairs of the EU Council and data protection issues of the Council of Europe. 

Special fields of my fundamental and human rights expertise and/or areas of interest:

I possess expertise on the monitoring of fundamental and human rights, content of the international human rights system and national human rights structures and their development, as well as on the tools and actors involved. I have specialised in such issues as minorities and minority languages, indigenous rights, violence against women, rights of the persons with disabilities, and such topical themes as security, technology, privacy and climate issues.

Name:

Sanna Ahola

My place of work/post: 

Expert at the Human Rights Centre

About me: 

I am a Master of Laws by training. For many years, I worked as a lawyer in an organisation representing the interests of the persons with disabilities in tasks involving legal matters, lobbying and training. From there, I moved to the Ageing, Disability and Functioning Unit of the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare where I worked as a special expert for a few years. Since spring 2019, I have served as an expert on the rights of the elderly at the Human Rights Centre.

Special fields of my fundamental and human rights expertise and/or areas of interest:

I am particularly interested in the manner in which individuals and population groups are able to enjoy fundamental and human rights. Social rights are important in this respect but the same also applies to traditional civil and political rights. 

Name:

Susan Villa

My place of work/post: 

Expert at the Human Rights Centre, Deputy to the Director

About me: 

I have a Master of Social Sciences degree from the University of Tampere. I had international relations as my major subject and specialised in conflict research. In addition to my major studies, I also took a degree in journalism.

I started work at the Human Rights Centre in spring 2019. Before my current post, I worked as an expert and writer in my own company. In that work, I also dealt with a wide range of different fundamental and human rights issues, such as the international human rights policy, equality and corporate responsibility. I prepared reports, policy briefs and influencing strategies for ministries, companies and other organisations. I have also accumulated experience on organisational work: for many years, I served as the Communications Officer and General Secretary of the Finnish League for Human Rights. In the early part of my career, I worked in the Tampere Peace Research Institute in a project focusing on the conflict in the Middle East.

Writing and journalism have always been an integral part of my work. I have worked as a journalist, managing editor and chief editor in Finnish and international media. 

Special fields of my fundamental and human rights expertise and/or areas of interest:

At the moment, my focus is on the rights of the elderly and corporate human rights responsibility. I am interested in a wide range of fundamental and human rights issues, such as the international human rights policy, the human rights system, rule of law issues, corporate responsibility and media freedom.

Name:

Mikko Joronen 

My place of work/post: 

Expert at the Human Rights Centre 

About me: 

I am a Master of Social Sciences by training. 

I have focused on fundamental and human rights issues throughout my work history. After serving eight years in the Finnish League for Human Rights, I took up a post in the Office of the Ombudsman for Minorities. A few years later, the Office was given new tasks and became the Office of the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman. 

I have been working at the Human Rights Centre since 2016. 

Special fields of my fundamental and human rights expertise and/or areas of interest: 

Working jointly with the Parliamentary Ombudsman, I am managing a statutory special task involving the promotion, protection and monitoring of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). I am specifically responsible for promoting the rights of the persons with disabilities, national monitoring of the implementation of the convention’s obligations and reporting on the process, and engaging persons with disabilities and organisations representing them in the monitoring procedure. 

Throughout my work history, my focus has been on non-discrimination issues.

Name

Elina Hakala

My place of work/tasks:

Expert at the Human Rights Centre

Background:

I am a Master of Social Sciences by training. I have worked at the Finnish Human Rights Centre from 2013 to 2019 and again since 2021.

In the Centre, I have been tasked with various duties, including coordination of the Centre’s European and international activities, human rights communication and monitoring the implementation of fundamental and human rights in Finland. From 2014 to 2016 I served as the Secretary of the Human Rights Delegation. Since March 2021, I am conducting a study on selected fundamental and human rights actors in Finland that focuses on the current state of the Finnish human rights architecture and will provide recommendations for its development.

From 2019 and 2021 I worked as the Human Rights and Gender Trainer for European Union CSDP mission in Mali .

Special fields of my fundamental and human rights expertise and/or areas of interest:

functioning and development of the national human rights system; cooperation between different fundamental and human rights actors; human rights communication; human rights and security.