Professors of Practice to explore questions of race and human rights
An exhibition on race relations and slavery, public lectures in Asia, student learning from an international diplomat, and business and human rights education are just some of the projects that three new Professors of Practice and a Community Fellow will help deliver at SOAS.
SOAS University of London has announced the 2024 cohort of practice-based associates, which are honorary appointments awarded to public figures who will use their practical or professional expertise to contribute to the mission of the School.
The appointees will bring their knowledge and professional expertise to SOAS via the School of Law and the Department of Politics and International Studies. Speaking on behalf of SOAS, Pro-Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange Professor Laura Hammond, said: “This cohort of practice-based appointments are a fantastic complement to our teaching and research areas of focus at SOAS. Their engagement with community activism, global media, international diplomacy, and human rights and business will help us to strengthen our links beyond academia and will help prepare our students to make important contributions to important global and local issues when they leave SOAS.”
The new appointments:
Gloria Daniel
Community Fellow, School of Law
Gloria Daniel had a long career in the world of antiques and interiors, followed by 20 years designing and manufacturing ceramics in the heart of the Potteries, Stoke-on-Trent. In 2020, she founded Transatlantic Trafficked Enslaved African Corrective Historical (TTEACH) Plaques. The project highlights and focuses attention on the compensation awarded to institutions and individuals under the 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act. TTEACH campaigns for permanent plaques and reparative interventions to contextualise the buildings that falsely honour those who profited from the transatlantic slave economy.
TTEACH Plaques and the School of Law will host the exhibition 50 Plaques and Places in October 2023, highlighting 50 sites associated with slavery in Britain, nominated by leading academics, artists, activists, politicians and African & Caribbean descendants who carry the history of a plantation name.
Aiko Doden
Professor of Practice, Department of Politics and International Studies
Aiko Doden is a senior commentator on international affairs and Senior Director at NHK World TV. She has expertise in reporting on a wide range of issues from ‘hard’ security to human security and has more than 30 years of experience in journalism. Aiko currently presents “NHK World Newsline in Depth” and comments on global affairs with a focus on Southeast Asia specialising in sustainable growth, global health, democracy, and human rights. She has also anchored major news programmes on Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK.
Aiko is keen to offer her expertise and networks to SOAS by offering workshops, networking events, mentoring to students, facilitating high profile lectures and other events, as well as raising SOAS’s profile in Asia and liaising with alumni in Asia.
Nicholas Westcott
Professor of Practice, Department of Politics and International Studies
Nicholas Westcott is Director of the Royal African Society, a former ambassador and senior manager in the UK and international, public and not-for-profit sectors. With a PhD in African studies, his academic and work experience covers Africa, the Middle East, the EU, the US and international relations and IT more generally. He has worked with the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy (CISD), now part of the Department for Politics and International Studies, at SOAS for the past four years, delivering lectures on the practice of diplomacy and experience of negotiations. He has also supported two CISD Study Tours to Addis Ababa, in 2019 and Geneva in 2022.
Dr Westcott will be able to draw on his 35-year experience in diplomacy and international affairs to enhance the learning process for the students, reflecting on the many specific diplomatic situations he has been involved with and bringing in contacts from across the world of diplomacy to give real world examples for the course participants. The author of a book on development policy and practice, he is currently writing one on diplomacy (for Routledge), and is interested in exploring how international relations theory relates to the real world of diplomatic activity.
Gerald Pachoud
Professor of Practice, School of Law
Gerald Pachoud is Managing Partner of Pluto & Associates (a boutique advisory firm focused on global public policy and corporate responsibility). He has held various senior positions in the United Nations (including Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative on Business and Human Rights) and the Swiss government.
Gerald also serves as senior advisor to the Global Business Initiative on Human Rights, a business-led initiative of a core group of 21 major corporations headquartered in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America, and to the Cadmos European Engagement Investment Fund He also sits on the advisory boards of various organizations and companies such as the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative, BASF, the largest chemical producer in the world, a leading European asset management company and until recently on the advisory ESG Board of Candriam Asset Management and the Governing Board of ACCESS Facility, a global non-profit organisation that seeks to promote non-judicial grievance mechanisms to prevent and resolve conflicts between companies and communities.
Gerald is associated with the Centre for Human Rights Law and assists in teaching one of SOAS’s flagship human rights courses, Business & Human Rights in the Global Economy, by providing a unique clinical element to the course. He may also become involved in collaborative research projects together with the Centre for Human Rights Law.
The latest cohort join the Professors of Practice, Policy Fellows and Community Fellows who joined SOAS in 2020, 2021, and 2022.
Pictured above: the honorary appointments, clockwise: Dr Nick Westcott, Gloria Daniel, Gerald Pachoud, and Aiko Doden.
