Sherpa’s operations are implemented by a committed permanent team and thanks to the commitment of its administrators, interns and volunteers. The association also benefits from a network of experts, academics and lawyers.
Sandra is an international lawyer with over twenty years of experience and almost fifteen years defending and protecting victims of economics crimes, fighting impunity, and advocating for changes of legal frameworks Prior to this position, Sandra headed the Globalisation and Human Rights Program within Sherpa for almost 8 years. She was a leading voice on the need to change the legal framework so that legal structures would reflect economic reality and contribute to achieving access to justice for victims of corporate violations of human rights.
During this period, Sherpa was at the forefront of some of the most important milestones in corporate liability for human rights, bringing new strategic litigation cases and testing innovative legal ground to fight against corporate impunity.
Sandra played a pivotal role in the development of the ground-breaking duty of vigilance legislation that was adopted in France in March 2017 after 5 years of intensive advocacy work. She also regularly engages constructively with and provides expert advice and submissions to various stakeholders, including the French government, and therefore took an active participation in the development of the French National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights.
Prior to heading the GHR Program at Sherpa, Sandra had spent 8 years in England. She was working as a legal consultant for companies before volunteering for the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, conducting legal and general research for two years. Prior to that experience, she worked at a law firm in Paris where she provided counsel and litigation services, notably in business law. She also provided pro bono representation and legal advice to asylum seekers and refugees. Before that, she worked within international organizations such as the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, as well as for the European Union in Russia.
Sandra is the author of many scholarly legal articles, news articles, and op-ed’s and has participated in TV and radio news programmes and documentaries, and is an assistant Lecturer at Science Po Paris. She is also a member of the board of the non-profit organization RSE-et-PED, which aims to equip actors from the Global South with better access to information, CSR expertise and tools.
Sandra Cossart holds a Master of Laws degree from the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, as well as degrees from Sciences Po in Paris, the College of Europe in Bruges (LLM), Inalco (Russia) and the London School of Economics.
Sandra Cossart is Sherpa’s director since November 2017.
After graduating in Political Science and Economics (University of Paris I – Panthéon-Sorbonne) and International Relations (University of Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle), her studies first led Kim to work on the issue of transitional justice in Latin America.
She then coordinated international solidarity organisations focused on the accompaniment and protection of victims of economic crimes and other human rights violations, in France and Guatemala, before carrying out a mission as a Protection Officer in South Sudan.
Within Sherpa, she manages since 2021 a capacity building project constructed with civil society organizations from France and West Africa.
Kim is a French and Brazilian national and speaks French, English, Spanish and Portuguese.
Within the team, Tiphaine works on the protection of civic space, including free speech and access to information in the digital era. She previously worked for the Permanent Mission of France to the UN in Geneva and assisted companies in their Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives within a consulting firm. She has a Master’s degree in Economic Law from Sciences Po Paris and holds the French CAPA. She also studied in the United States, at the UC Berkeley School of Law and lived in India for a year. It is after an experience as a litigation lawyer in a Parisian law firm that Tiphaine joined Sherpa in September 2020. She had previously joined Sherpa between 2016 and 2018, to work on the duty of vigilance law for parent companies and instructing companies.
Prior to joining Sherpa in 2021, Théa worked for several years as a lawyer in environmental law.
After a first experience in advising and defending companies on the development of renewable energy projects, She worked on litigation cases, notably before the French Council of State, for environmental protection associations in the fields of air pollution, biofuels, and urban planning. Meanwhile, Théa has taught administrative and environmental law at Sorbonne and Paris II universities and has been involved as a volunteer in environmental protection associations.
She holds a Master II in environmental law from the Universities of Paris 1 and Paris 2 as well as a Certificate of Aptitude for the Legal Profession (CAPA).
Before joining Sherpa in 2020, Laura practiced business litigation in a law firm of the Hauts-de-Seine Bar, focusing on civil procedure and private international law (conflict of laws).
In addition, Laura has served in various operational and supervisory roles within Rotaract. She is a member of the UC Berkeley Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law Research Center and supports the EUCLID legal clinic at the University of Paris Nanterre.
She holds a Master’s degree in International Litigation from the University of Paris Nanterre, and has also studied in England and California.
Prior to joining the team in 2019, Lucie was an associate in the international arbitration team of a law firm in Paris. She also worked for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, while volunteering with several organisations involved in the defence of migrants’ rights.
She holds a Master’s degree in Economic Law from Sciences Po Paris and a LLM in International Law from the University of Cambridge. She also studied in Brazil and in Ecuador, where she lived for a year.
Before joining Sherpa in 2022, Carmen worked as a partnerships manager in Paris for a company in the social and solidarity economy sector. Prior to this, she volunteered in a fundraising project in Madagascar with a local NGO. She also worked in Germany as a project manager for an organisation conducting projects in the development aid sector, funded mainly by the European Commission.
Carmen holds law degrees from the University of Cologne (LL.B.), the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Master), and an interdisciplinary degree in development aid from the University of Bath (Msc). Carmen speaks fluently English, German and Spanish (one of her mother tongue).
Before joining Sherpa in 2022, Jean-Philippe worked as a coordinator and then a lawyer and advocacy officer for an NGO dedicated to protecting whistleblowers. As such, he actively contributed to drafting and then passing the whistleblower protection system instituted by the “Waserman” law of March 22, 2022. Previously, Jean-Philippe held the positions of doctoral fellow and Temporary Teaching and Research Fellow at Paris Nanterre University, and Resident Fellow at the Information Society Project (Yale Law School). Simultaneously, he acted as a whistleblower protection expert for several international organisations (OIF, Council of Europe) on the issue of the protection of whistleblowers, and was involved in several NGOS assisting exiled persons.
He is a graduate of the Master’s degree in “Human Rights” from the University of Paris Nanterre.
Prior to joining Sherpa in 2021, Anna worked at different organisations defending human rights through advocacy and litigation: first in the United States at a research center on the death penalty worldwide, then in India with an NGO fighting bonded labour and trafficking, and lastly in the United Kingdom with a charity providing face-to-face support to refugees and migrants to remove barriers to their integration.
Anna holds law degrees from the University of Cologne (LL.B.), the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Master), and Cornell Law School (LL.M.). She is admitted to the New York Bar. Anna speaks fluently English, German and conversational Spanish.
Lawyer specializing in banking and financial law and PhD candidate in European law, Chanez joined Sherpa in 2019 as legal advisor at the illicit financial flows department. After a career of nearly four years in a bank, in an asset management company as well as in international law firms in Paris and Luxembourg which allowed her to acquire a good understanding and expertise of supervision issues related to banking and finance, she started academic research on European financial law and the financial stability of the EU and teaches European law at the university as well as at Sciences Po Paris.
Within the team, Juliette is in charge on a part-time basis of the administrative, accounting and financial part.
With a degree in human sciences, economics and management, she worked for 10 years in the print media before working with employee representatives as an expert in a firm specialising in supporting social and economic committees and trade union organisations.
After graduating in Political and Institutional Communication (Sciences Po Grenoble, Grenoble Alpes University), Dorine began a career in a foundation dedicated to women’s rights. In addition, she has worked for charities in the same sector, as well as in a charity fighting HIV.
Later, she developed her fundraising and event management skills in London, in an NGO committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflicts. After managing the communication for a research project in a British university, she then worked for a French university foundation and joined Sherpa in 2022.
Franceline Lepany was admitted to the Paris Bar in 1972. She focused on fighting sexual trafficking and labor exploitation. She is active in several associations dealing with these issues and headed a sex workers organisation “Le bus des femmes”, providing ressources for sex workers in France.
She is now an honorary lawyer and was a very active member within Sherpa since her arrival in 2015 as a Board member. She was nominated President in December 2017, taking over William Bourdon.
Jean Merckaert has been director of advocacy for Secours Catholique since October 2018. Prior to that, he was the senior editor of the magazine “projet”, he worked for CCFD-Terre solidaire, where he was responsible for issues relating to development funding and he also managed Plateforme Paradis Fiscaux et Judiciaires. He has authored numerous CCFD reports on ill-gotten gains, tax havens and debt in developing countries.
Jean has been on the organization’s Board of Directors since June 10, 2011.
Laurence Sinopoli has been a teacher and researcher at the University of Paris X Nanterre since 2000 and is director of the European and Comparative Law Research Centre (CEJEC).The relationship between international private law and human rights is the focus of her teaching and her research.She founded a law clinic to support the university’s interactions with civil society and to stimulate thinking on the effectiveness and efficiency of law.She wrote her thesis and several articles on the right to a fair trial in private international affairs, and she is determined to show that the implementation of standards in the area of human rights is hindered by a cruel lack of means for their implementation. She recently co-directed a publication entitled Les actions en justice au-delà de l’intérêt personnel (Dalloz).
Laurence has been on the organization’s Board of Directors since December 13, 2013.
Gregory Regaignon is Program Officer for international human rights within a philanthropic foundation and oversees the foundation’s work on the human rights impacts and responsibilities of businesses and other economic actors.
During almost 14 years he worked in the US for the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre as a research director, where he managed and developed the Centre’s African team, supervised and developed its project on corporate legal accountability, and directed its work on natural resources.
Gregory Regaignon has been on the organization’s Board of Directors since November 24, 2020.
Julia Mello Neiva is a Brazilian lawyer, researcher and activist specializing in race and gender discrimination and business and human rights. She is the coordinator of the development and socio-environmental rights program of the NGO Conectas Direitos Humanos, which she co-founded, in Brazil.
She worked at the Pólis Institute, the African American Policy Forum, Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Clinic and the Center for Reproductive Rights before joining the Business & Human Rights Resource Center as a representative and senior researcher for seven years.
Julia Mello Neiva has been on the organization’s Board of Directors since November 24, 2020.
Evelyne Serverin holds a PhD and is a research director at the CNRS.
She is a member of the Center for Legal Theory and Analysis at the University of Paris Ouest – Nanterre La Défense, and is also an associate researcher at the Center for Employment Studies. She is a member of the National Ethics Committee of the CNRS, and since March 2017, of admission commission in charge of claims on public prosecutors.
She is the author of numerous publications in the fields of law, sociology of law and justice.
Evelyne Serverin has been on the organization’s Board of Directors since November 24, 2020.
Jonathan Kaufman is Executive Director of Advocates for Community Alternatives in Ghana, West Africa.
He is an American attorney at the New York and Washington Bars with more than a decade of experience in strategic litigation, international advocacy, and capacity building for rural communities whose human rights are threatened by the operations of multinational corporations.
Jonathan Kaufman has been on the organization’s Board of Directors since November 24, 2020.
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