Tejshree Thapa
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Tejshree Thapa (10 November 1966 – 26 March 2019) was a Nepalese
human rights lawyer International human rights law (IHRL) is the body of international law designed to promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels. As a form of international law, international human rights law are primarily made up of treaties, ag ...
. She was recognized for her role in investigating and documenting human rights violations, including widespread sexual violence and other atrocities committed during the
Yugoslav Wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from ...
, the Sri Lanka Civil War, and the
Nepal Civil War The Nepalese Civil War was a protracted armed conflict that took place in the former Kingdom of Nepal from 1996 to 2006. It saw fighting between the Nepalese royal government and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) throughout the country. ...
.


Early life and education

Thapa was born in 1966 in
Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Prov ...
, Nepal. Her father,
Bhekh Bahadur Thapa Bhekh Bahadur Thapa ( ne, डा. भेखबहादुर थापा also spelled as Bhesh Bahadur Thapa) is a foreign affairs expert and diplomat. He is former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nepal. He was fourth Governor of Nepal Rastra B ...
, held several government positions (including Nepal's foreign minister); her mother, Dr. Rita (Basnet) Thapa, worked as a public health specialist, focusing on maternal health and family planning. Thapa's family emigrated to Canada when she was a young child, for a brief spell of three years. They subsequently moved back to Nepal, where her father held several government offices including minister of finance. Her mother meanwhile worked for the WHO in the field of public health, with a focus on maternal and child mortality. In 1979, her family moved to Washington, DC., when her father was named Nepal's ambassador to the United States. She attended
National Cathedral School National Cathedral School (NCS) is an independent Episcopal private day school for girls in grades 4–12 located on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by philanthropist and suffragist Phoe ...
. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Wellesley College, before earning a law degree from Cornell Law School in 1993.


Career

After law school, Thapa worked for
Radhika Coomaraswamy Deshamanya Radhika Coomaraswamy (born 17 September 1953)is a Sri Lankan lawyer, diplomat and human rights advocate who served as the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict until 13 ...
, the first United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women. In this role, Thapa interviewed survivors and perpetrators of gender-based violence, contributing to a report for the
UN Commission on Human Rights The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006. It was a subsidiary body of ...
. Thapa then worked for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, based in The Hague, leading a unit that investigated and documented abuses that occurred in the Yugoslav wars. She was credited with helping to win the Foca cases, which involved sexual crimes committed against Muslim women in the town of Foca, Bosnia, in 1992 and 1993. Her work led to the convictions of eight Serb paramilitary leaders and their supporters, the first prosecution and conviction exclusively for sexual violence crimes under international criminal law. Thapa was also recognized for her role in building a case against Slobdan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia and Serbia, who was tried on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. In 2004, Thapa joined
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
, working as a researcher (later Senior Researcher) on South Asia. She documented sexual violence and other human rights violations that occurred during the civil wars in Sri Lanka and Nepal, as well as in Bangladesh. Her work there helped force the United Nations to acknowledge its failure in protecting civilians during the Sri Lankan Civil War, and prompted the UN to establish Human Rights Up Front, an initiative to promote the importance of early response to human rights violations. Her team comprehensively documented the recruitment of child soldiers by the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE; ta, தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள், translit=Tamiḻīḻa viṭutalaip pulikaḷ, si, දෙමළ ඊළාම් විමුක්ති කොටි, t ...
. In 2017, Thapa documented the Myanmar military’s ethnic cleansing of
Rohingya Muslims The Rohingya people () are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar (previously known as Burma). Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an ...
along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, one of the first human rights workers to do so.


Personal life and death

Thapa was married twice and has a daughter, born in 2000, from the second marriage. In March 2019, Thapa died in New York City from multiple organ failure, following a sudden illness.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thapa, Tejshree 1966 births 2019 deaths 20th-century Nepalese lawyers Human rights lawyers Cornell Law School alumni Wellesley College alumni Human Rights Watch people Women human rights activists People of the Nepalese Civil War 21st-century Nepalese lawyers