People

Dr. Girmachew Alemu Aneme is the Eleanor Roosevelt Visiting Fellow with the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School. He was a Visiting Scholar with the Graduate Program at Harvard Law School during the 2017–2018 academic year and held a Kistefos Africa Public Service Fellowship at Harvard Kennedy School in 2016–2017. He has also held academic and research appointments at the University of Minnesota Law School, the University of Oslo, the Free University of Berlin, and the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre. 

Girmachew is a scholar and human rights practitioner whose research centers on human rights, the rule of law, legal pluralism, and transitional justice in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. He holds a Ph.D. in Law and an M.A. in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the University of Oslo, a Master of Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School, and an LL.B. from Addis Ababa University School of Law. 

He has held senior academic and leadership roles at Addis Ababa University School of Law, where he served as Associate Professor of Law, Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Ethiopian Law. He has extensive experience teaching graduate level courses in international human rights law, international criminal law, global governance, and sociology of law, and has guided research at the master’s and doctoral levels. 

Beyond academia, Girmachew has contributed to human rights institution building and policy development in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. He led Ethiopia’s first large scale university based legal aid program, which has provided advocacy services to thousands of indigent clients, including women, children, people with disabilities, urban refugees, and individuals living with HIV in urban centers and rural villages. He co-founded the East Africa Human Rights Annual Training Program and launched the first multidisciplinary human rights journal at Addis Ababa University’s Center for Human Rights. 

Girmachew’s scholarship has examined political and civil rights, the rights of women and children, Ethiopia’s Red Terror trials, the interaction between state and non state justice systems, and the institutionalization of regional human rights and accountability mechanisms. 

Related Work 

Journal Articles 

The Judicial and Constitutional Review of the Decisions of Courts of Sharia: A Comment Based on Kedija Bashir et al. v. Aysha Ahmed et al., Journal of Ethiopian Law, vol. 26, no. 2, Addis Ababa University Press, 2015. 

The Institutionalization of Cosmopolitan Justice: The Case of the African Union’s Right of Intervention, Minnesota Journal of International Law, vol. 23, June 2013. 

The Anatomy of Special Prosecutor v. Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam (1994-2008), International Journal of Ethiopian Studies, vol. IV, nos. 1-2, Spring/Fall 2009. 

The African Standby Force: Major Issues Under Mission Scenario Six, Political Perspectives, Graduate Journal of the University of Manchester, vol. 2, no. 1, 2008. 

Apology and Trials: The Case of the Red Terror Trials in Ethiopia, African Human Rights Law Journal, vol. 6, 2006. 

The African Union and Collective Security in Africa, OSSREA Bulletin, vol. II, no. 3, October 2005. 

Books 

Ethiopian Human Rights Handbook, Centre for Human Rights, Addis Ababa University, January 2013 (co-author). 

Handbook on the Rights of the Child in Ethiopia, Centre for Human Rights, Addis Ababa University, September 2012 (co-author). 

Essays on Environmental Rights, Ethiopian Human Rights Law Series, vol. IV, Addis Ababa University Press, July 2012 (editor). 

A Study of the African Union’s Right of Intervention Against Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes, Wolf Legal Publishers, The Netherlands, March 2011. 

The Ethiopian Red Terror Trials: Transitional Justice Challenged, James Currey, United Kingdom, March 2009 (co-editor). 

The Constitutional Protection of Human Rights in Ethiopia: Challenges and Prospects, Ethiopian Human Rights Law Series, vol. 2, Addis Ababa University Press, December 2008 (co-editor). 

Book Chapters  

Ethiopia: Legal and Judicial Plurality and the Incorporation of Traditional Dispute Resolution Mechanisms Within the State Justice System, in Matthias Kotter et al. (eds), Non-State Justice Institutions and the Law, Palgrave Macmillan, January 2015. 

The Policy and Legislative Framework of Environmental Rights in Ethiopia, in Essays on Environmental Rights, Ethiopian Human Rights Law Series, vol. 4, Addis Ababa University Press, July 2012. 

The Red Terror Trials: The Context of Transitional Justice in Ethiopia, in Kjetil Tronvoll et al. (eds), The Ethiopian Red Terror Trials: Transitional Justice Challenged, James Currey, United Kingdom, March 2009 (co-author). 

The Rights of the Accused: A Human Rights Appraisal, in Kjetil Tronvoll et al. (eds), The Ethiopian Red Terror Trials: Transitional Justice Challenged, James Currey, United Kingdom, March 2009 (co-author). 

Beyond the Red Terror Trials: Analyzing Guarantees of Non-Repetition, in Kjetil Tronvoll et al. (eds), The Ethiopian Red Terror Trials: Transitional Justice Challenged, James Currey, United Kingdom, March 2009. 

Working Papers and Reports 

Assessing the Judicial Response to Gender-Based Violence in Federal Courts, research report, Ethiopian Lawyers for Human Rights and Konrad A. Stiftung, June 2022. 

The Coupling of State and Sharia Justice Systems in a Secular State: The Case of Ethiopia, Collaborative Research Center, Free University of Berlin, Working Paper Series 75, May 2018. 

Book Reviews 

Darfur: A Short History of a Long War, Julie Flint and Alex de Waal (2005), Nordic Journal of Human Rights, vol. 24, no. 3, 2006. 

Human Rights Law in Africa, Christof Heyns (ed.) (2004), Nordic Journal of Human Rights, vol. 23, no. 1, 2005. 

Human Rights in Africa: From the OAU to the African Union, Rachel Murray (2005), Nordic Journal of Human Rights, vol. 23, no. 2, 2005. 

Blog Posts and Commentary 

A Prime Minister Governing Through War Seeks Validation Through the Ballot Box, Medium, May 26, 2026. 

Turning Back the Clock of Time in Ethiopia, Medium, November 2021. 

Ethiopia’s Next Poll Could Be More Competitive. But Big Challenges Remain, The Conversation, February 8, 2021. 

Ethiopia’s 2021 Elections: Rules, Actors, and Mechanisms, ResearchGate, February 2021. 

Narrow Hate Speech Law Will Not Broaden Minds, Ethiopia Insight, January 24, 2020. 

Why Ethiopia Needs a Strong Incumbent Political Party in the Transition to Democracy, Addis Standard, December 3, 2019. 

To Resolve Constitutional Dilemma, Interpretation Is Not Enough, Ethiopia Insight, May 15, 2019.