Gay McDougall
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Gay J. McDougall was Executive Director of Global Rights, Partners for Justice (from September 1994 to 2006). Her surname is sometimes misspelled as MacDougall. In August 2005, she was named the first United Nations Independent Expert on Minority Issues.
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[edit] Early years
As a child, Gay McDougall was banned from many public places in Atlanta. When she finished high school, McDougall was chosen to be the first black student to integrate Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia.
[edit] Private law career
After graduating from Yale Law School, she joined the New York City corporate law firm of Debevoise, Plimpton, Lyons & Gates.
[edit] Non-proft career
Ms. McDougall was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1999 for her "innovative and highly effective" work on behalf of international human rights. In 1998, she was elected to serve as an independent expert on the United Nations treaty body that oversees the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). She is the first American to be elected to the body of 18 international experts who oversee compliance by governments worldwide with the obligations established under the treaty. At its 1996 session, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights elected her to serve a four year term as a member (alternate) of the U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the Human Rights commission.
She also served as Special Rapporteur on the issue of systematic rape, sexual slavery, and slavery-like practices in armed conflict, in which capacity she presented a study to the United Nations Sub-Commission on Human Rights that called for international legal standards for prosecuting acts of systematic rape and sexual slavery committed during armed conflict. As Special Rapporteur she also toured Sierra Leone with the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to assess the devastating impact the civil war had on civilian populations.
Prior to joining Global Rights, Gay McDougall served as one of five international members of South Africa's 16-member Independent Electoral Commission which successfully organized and administered that country's first non-racial elections. In the last years of southern Africa's apartheid era, she gave direct assistance to the defense of thousands of political prisoners in South Africa and Namibia by financing the defense and collaborating with attorneys.
In 1989, McDougall founded the Commission of Independence for Namibia, a bipartisan group of 31 distinguished Americans who monitored in detail the year-long process to independence mandated by the U.N. The Commission intervened to force modifications in critical legislation, such as the voter registration and election laws, which as drafted, threatened the fairness of the election process.
[edit] Education
Gay McDougall earned her JD at Yale Law School and her LLM in public international law at the London School of Economics and Politics.
[edit] Other positions
- Senior Scholars 2002, Institute for Policy Studies </ref>
- Director, Africare
- Director, Global Fund for Women
- Advisory Council, Realizing Rights
- Executive Council, American Society of International Law
- Distinguished Scholar in Residence, American University's College of Law Faculty
