Staff (L-R): Adam Edwards, Arpita Vora, Camille Massey, Amal Thabateh, Andy Laine
Under the leadership of Founding Executive Director, L. Camille Massey, the Center’s team supports CUNY Law students striving to practice law in the service of human needs. The Center’s staff connects students with global leaders working to protect human rights, provides resources to students committed to addressing global challenges, and guides students in their pursuit of professional opportunities that will help them positively impact the world.
L. Camille Massey
Email: camille.massey@law.cuny.edu
Telephone: (718) 340-4172
L. Camille Massey, J.D., is Founding Executive Director of the Sorensen Center for International Peace and Justice at CUNY School of Law. She previously served as Vice President for Global Strategy and Programs at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, and has served in senior positions at Human Rights First and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, working in 23 countries with a concentration in Africa and Asia. Massey founded Cue Global, a consulting business that designed and implemented strategic policy, legal, advocacy, communications, and resource mobilization plans for global organizations, was appointed a Human Rights Fellow at The Carter Center in Atlanta, and worked with musician Peter Gabriel to help establish WITNESS, an international human rights organization supporting local groups in the use of video.
As a long-time board member of Breakthrough, Massey works on projects worldwide to stop violence against women and girls. She also serves on the board of Outright Action International and the advisory boards of Global Witness, the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University and House of SpeakEasy, a literary nonprofit organization. Massey earned her J.D. from CUNY School of Law, and a B.S. from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School where she currently sits on the Advisory Board. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Bar Association, and the New York City Bar Association.
Arpita Vora
Email: arpita.vora@law.cuny.edu
Phone: (718) 340-4295
Arpita Vora serves as the Operations and Communications Specialist for the Sorensen Center for International Peace and Justice. Prior to joining the Center, Vora was a litigation paralegal at Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP where she assisted in litigation relating to construction, real estate, and copyright disputes. Vora earned a Bachelor of Arts in Government with a concentration in American Politics from Wesleyan University and is pursuing her juris doctor at CUNY School of Law. She is passionate about social justice and dedicated to furthering the Center’s mission.
Adam Edwards '22
Adam Edwards is a Juris Doctor and Master of International Affairs candidate, studying at the CUNY School of Law and City College as part of a dual degree program. Prior to embarking on his current academic path, Edwards championed progressive reform nationwide as the leader of a series of political campaigns for office and other initiatives; including a voting rights push in Phoenix in 2016 to unseat former sheriff Joe Arpaio.
As a Research Assistant for the Sorensen Center, Edwards established and has led the Center’s Voting Rights Initiative which is designed to educate and inspire the student body and ultimately wade in to the major voting rights battles being fought in New York and beyond. Edwards was a 2019 Sorensen Center Fellow. He interned with Common Cause New York during his Fellowship summer where he worked to advance the voting rights movement in New York and across the nation. He lives in Jackson Heights with his cat and his partner Mackenzie.
Shannon Haupt '22
Shannon Haupt hails from Detroit, Michigan. Prior to law school, they worked as an environmental educator in Detroit Public Schools and as an organizer for stronger air quality regulations and community owned renewable energy in Michigan. At CUNY Law, they are a member of the Formerly Incarcerated Law Student Advocacy Association. Outside of law school, Haupt volunteers with the Parole Preparation Project and plays ultimate frisbee. They were inspired to pursue law by movement lawyers and activists in Detroit.
Andy Laine '20
Andy Laine is a recent graduate from the CUNY School of Law. He participated in the Disability and Aging Justice Clinic and was a member of the Sorensen Center’s 2019 Comparative Law Program Delegation to Cuba. Prior to attending CUNY Law, Laine served in various roles in the New York State Senate, New York State Assembly, and New York City Council. His mission is to provide affordable legal services while helping change the false narratives and outcomes in his Southeast Queens community.
Amal Thabateh '21
Amal Thabateh is a member of CUNY Law’s Student’s Justice for Palestine (SJP) and the Muslim Law Student Association (MLSA). As a 2020 Sorensen Center Fellow she interned at Defense for Children International – Palestine. In 2019, Thabateh interned with the Council on American Islamic Relations in New York where she worked closely with a civil rights attorney on a mix of criminal, civil, and administrative matters, including challenges to the Muslim Ban and civil follow-on litigation for victims of hate crimes. She is interested in international human rights law.
Wolfgang Kaleck
Wolfgang Kaleck founded the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) together with other internationally renowned lawyers in Berlin in 2007. He has served as General Secretary and Legal Director of the organization since its foundation.
Kaleck previously worked as a criminal law attorney at law firm Hummel.Kaleck.Rechtsanwälte, which he co-founded in 1991. Since 1998 he has been an advocate for the Koalition gegen Straflosigkeit (Coalition against Impunity) which fights to hold Argentinian military officials accountable for the murder and disappearance of German citizens during the Argentine dictatorship. Between 2004 and 2008, he worked with the New York Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) to pursue criminal proceedings against members of the US military, including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Kaleck is a member of the Centre of European Law and Politics at the University of Bremen (ZERP), the Forum for International and Criminal and Humanitarian Law (FICHL), the lawyers collective CCAJAR in Colombia and Mexican non-governmental organization ProDESCas well as a board member of the Paul Grueninger Foundation.
Maina Kiai
Maina Kiai, a prominent Kenyan human rights lawyer, recently began leading a new partnership initiative at Human Rights Watch to build alliances and engage communities in human rights work. Prior to beginning his work with Human Rights Watch, Kiai served as the first-ever United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association from May 2011 to April 2017. As UNSR, he held fact-finding missions in Ferguson, Baltimore, Jackson, and other U.S. cities, and urged lawmakers to stop alarming trend to curb freedom of assembly around Standing Rock, women’s marches, and #blacklivesmatter. He has also focused on workers’ rights and heard challenges faced by workers during his fact-finding missions around the world. When he stepped down as UNSR in 2017, he resumed his work as co-director of InformAction, a community organizing NGO in Kenya.
A lawyer trained at Nairobi and Harvard Universities, Kiai has spent the last twenty years campaigning for human rights and constitutional reform in Kenya – notably as founder and Executive Director of the unofficial Kenya Human Rights Commission, and then as Chairman of Kenya’s National Human Rights Commission (2003-2008), where he won a national reputation for his courageous and effective advocacy against official corruption, in support of political reform, and against impunity following the violence that convulsed Kenya in 2008, causing thousands of deaths.
