Liesbeth Zegveld
Prof. Dr. Liesbeth Zegveld is partner at Böhler Franken Koppe Wijngaarden, a renowned law firm in Amsterdam. She is head of the international law & human rights department of this firm. She represents the Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses in their case against Libya, which state tortured them to confess that they deliberately infected hundreds of Libyan children with HIV.
Liesbeth Zegveld has worked on numerous other high-profile cases. In a civil law suit against the Dutch State, she represents victims form Srebrenica. In the criminal case against the Dutch businessman Frans van Anraat, concerning his trade with Iraq in chemical material in the 80ties, she represents the Iraqi victims of the chemical attacks. Also, she acts as counsel for Afghan civilians who were victimized by air attacks undertaken in Afghanistan. More recently, on behalf of Nigerian local farmers and Friends of the Earth Netherlands, she sued Royal Dutch Shell in a corporate responsibility case for damage from oil leaks, which devastated crops and fish farms in the Niger Delta in Nigeria.
Liesbeth Zegveld is also Professor of International Humanitarian Law at Leiden University. In particular, she focuses on the rights of woman and children in armed conflicts, a topic on which she has written several articles and contributions to books.
Furthermore, she is a member of the Committee on Compensation for War Victims of the International Law Association. In her capacity as both lawyer and professor, she fundamentally re-thinks the procedures for war victim compensation. Without proper implementation of these procedures, war victims are often deprived of their right to redress.