TwoCents
Your career spans advocacy, humanitarian work, and international criminal justice—how did each stage shape the lawyer you are today?
I started as domestic lawyer/general legal practitioner in Cameroon with a special focus on pro-bono defence of every impecunious person I came across who was in need of justice, victims of prolonged detention, illegal arrest etc. During those early days as a legal practitioner, I realized I needed better professional skills in understanding human rights protection which motivated me to join civil society and this exposed me to a good number of trainings/workshops/capacity building at the national level.
Subsequently, some international / non-governmental organizations funded a number of my trainings on human rights protection at the regional level in a number of African countries.
After these trainings in human rights protection at the African level coupled with field work in the crisis affected English speaking regions in Cameroon, I felt the need to acquire training and education in protecting victims of armed conflict. This motivated me to approach the International Institute of Humanitarian law in Sanremo Italy and they engaged me into professional programs on International humanitarian law and later recommended I undertook the Professional Master Programme offered by University for Peace and United Nations Interregional crime and Justice Institute(UNICRI)
Lastly, studies at UNICRI introduced me to the work of the ICC which greatly aligned to my previous work, trainings and studies.
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