University of East London

It is with great sadness that we note the passing of Professor Chandra Sriram.

She first joined UEL in 2005 as Professor of Human Rights at UEL School of Law, having completed her doctorate from Princeton University and having taught at St Andrews University. In 2006, she set up the Centre on Human Rights in Conflict (CHRC), which she directed with great dynamism, making UEL a centre of excellence in the field of Human Rights and Transitional Justice. She left the University in 2010 to join SOAS School of Law, returning to UEL in 2013 as Professor of International Law and International Relations.

Through the CHRC, Professor Sriram was involved in many projects on transitional justice around the world, including important contributions in Sierra Leone, Kenya, Sudan, Colombia and Sri Lanka. These included major projects funded by the European Union, ESRC, British Academy and the US Institute for Peace. 

Professor Sriram published widely in the field of conflict resolution and transitional justice, authoring or editing some ten books, including a significant monograph on “Peace as Governance: Power-Sharing, Armed Groups and Contemporary Peace Negotiations” (Palgrave, 2008).

At UEL, she developed LLM Courses such as War and Human Rights and supervised numerous PhD students. Her presence at UEL attracted many prominent Human Rights scholars, activists and experts to the University as members of staff, as guest speakers and as research collaborators.

Her international outlook and commitment to Human Rights research made a profound impact on those around her and on the university in general. Her unexpected death at a young age is a great loss of a close colleague and an excellent scholar. 

Source: https://www.uel.ac.uk/research/the-centre-on-human-rights-in-conflict/prof-chandra-sriram