I am a practitioner and researcher with an interest in humanitarian protection, human rights and transitional justice. For the last decade I have combined academic research with a consulting practice focusing on evaluation and programme support with international agencies, including the UN and NGOs, with an emphasis on states emerging from conflict and violence. I am Research Advisor to the Red Cross Red Crescent Missing Persons Centre, hosted by the International  Committee of the Red Cross, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York. I am an Associate Editor of the Journal of Disappearance Studies.

My consulting work has sought to provide policy and programmatic support to a range of humanitarian and human rights related programming, including extensive engagement with monitoring and evaluation, and in particular of protection and rule of law. My academic work is driven by a desire to put the needs of victims of conflict at the heart of efforts to address its legacies, and this has led to my engaging with victim-centred and therapeutic approaches to histories of violence. My research has focused on addressing legacies of violence after conflict, taking a critical perspective on transitional justice and a focus on emancipatory approaches driven by victims. I have tried to drive my research through innovative participatory approaches that see knowledge production and activism as inseparable. I have worked extensively on the issue of persons disappeared and missing in armed conflict, as well as dead and missing migrants at the EU’s southern border. I have worked for many years in both Nepal and Tunisia, and have broad experience in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

• Expert en justice transitionnelle, spécialisé dans la réconciliation nationale, la gestion des conflits, la promotion des droits humains, les mécanismes traditionnels de justice, l\'analyse des processus de paix, la facilitation de dialogues multi-acteurs, l\'élaboration de projets, le plaidoyer institutionnel et la cohésion sociale.

James Gondi is a Senior International Law and Transitional Justice Expert with over 18 years of experience working at the intersection of accountability, human rights, and post-conflict justice across Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. James has built a substantive body of work spanning international criminal justice, truth and reconciliation processes, and institutional reform.

As Legal Officer at the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya), James worked at the frontlines of advocacy for the domestication of the Rome Statute in Kenya — a critical period during which the country\'s relationship with the ICC was being actively contested. He engaged on questions of complementarity, state cooperation, and the design of credible local judicial mechanisms to address crimes committed during Kenya\'s 2007–2008 post-election violence. He was a prominent public voice insisting that any domestic accountability process must complement, not displace, the ICC process — a position that shaped civil society\'s engagement with both the Kenyan government and the international community. James also edited Reflections on the 2017 Elections in Kenya: Paper Series on Emerging Judicial Philosophy in Kenya (ICJ Kenya, 2018), a landmark publication cataloguing electoral jurisprudence and judicial independence, held in the collection of Berkeley Law Library. He further edited The Future of International Criminal Justice in Africa (ICJ Kenya), a compendium of critical essays addressing complementarity, the Malabo Protocol, gender justice, and the role of the African Union Transitional Justice Policy (AUTJP) in accountability for atrocity crimes — cementing his position as a leading voice on the trajectory of international criminal justice on the continent.

He led the Baseline Study on Transitional Justice and Reconciliation in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan for the Life & Peace Institute (LPI), a rigorous multi-country assessment that mapped the policy landscape, evaluated the capacity of civil society actors, and identified strategic entry points for transitional justice engagement across three of the Horn of Africa\'s most volatile contexts. The study combined extensive field research — including focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and in-country workshops — with deep comparative analysis of formal and customary justice systems, from Ethiopia\'s traditional dispute resolution mechanisms such as the Shimgelina and Gereb, to Somalia\'s clan-based Xeer and Sudan\'s community-rooted Yuddia. James\'s findings informed LPI\'s Horn of Africa Programme strategy and contributed practically to regional debates on how to sequence and sustain transitional justice processes in politically fragile settings. More recently, he led a Scoping Study on Transitional Justice Entry Points in the Greater Horn of Africa for Impunity Watch -The Hague (Ethiopia, Eritria, Sudan, South Sudan, Djibouti, Kenya & Uganda), further consolidating his regional expertise.

James contributed significantly to research and dissemination of the African Union Transitional Justice Policy (AUTJP), engaging critically with its frameworks for truth, justice, reparations, and institutional reform across African post-conflict contexts. He is a contributor to the International Journal of Transitional Justice and co-author of the Nairobi Principles on Accountability, a landmark policy instrument shaping regional accountability norms.

James brings particular expertise in linking transitional justice with environmental accountability. He has analysed the ICC Office of the Prosecutor\'s Policy on Environmental Crimes through a transitional justice lens — work that positions him at the cutting edge of emerging accountability frameworks. He has also engaged substantively with climate reparations theory and practice, contributing to Pan-African advocacy at the intersection of historical injustice, environmental harm, and reparative justice. James has led campaigns in Africa for the advancement of ecocide law, working to build momentum for the recognition of ecocide as an international crime and its integration into accountability frameworks relevant to the African context.

Dr. Baba G. Jallow is former Executive Secretary of Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC), a position he held from February 2018 to February 2022. He received his Masters in Liberal Studies from Rutgers University, Camden, NJ (2005) and his Ph. D in African History from the University of California at Davis (2011). His research interests include the history of colonial and post-colonial Africa, transitional justice and truth commissions, and negotiation and conflict resolution. Prior to his appointment as Executive Secretary of the TRRC, Dr. Jallow taught African history at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska and La Salle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From July 2023 to June 2024, he served as the Inaugural Roger D. Fisher Fellow in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Harvard Law School. Dr. Jallow is a member of the African Union’s Continental Reference Group on Transitional Justice in Africa.