The team
ECPM’s team consists of 21 employees and interns in the years in which the World Congresses are held (every three years). Outside these periods, the association has 16 employees and interns and is structured around different divisions: management and finance, international programmes, teaching and awareness-raising, and communication.
Management and administration
Raphaël Chenuil-Hazan, Executive Director
Advocacy and Human Rights Public Policy Specialist, Raphael is working on the different UN Bodies and the different Death Penalty thematics (minorities, foreign fighters, terrorism, discriminations, political Instrumentalization). Raphaël had worked in the past for different International Solidarity organisations as well as Red Cross, Caritas France or the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Africa (Chad, Niger, Cameroon) and Asia (Indonesia, Sri Lanka India). He represents ECPM within ECOSOC at the UN and develops an ongoing dialogue with diplomats of abolitionist and retentionist states as parliamentarians from many countries around the world to advance abolitionist strategies.
Ariane Grésillon, Deputy Executive Director
Ariane Grésillon is responsible for developing partnerships, recruitment and management of human resources, and overseeing monitoring and evaluation of the association’s programmes in France and abroad.
Nadège Poulain, Administrative and Financial Director
Nadège Poulain has been the association’s Administrative and Financial Director since 2012. She is responsible for the sound financial and administrative management of the association and its programmes, in compliance with the strictest rules laid down by funders. As a member of the management committee, she actively participates in the strategic development of the association through its various governing bodies.
Yaël Davigo, Administration and Finances Assistant
Yaël holds a Master’s degree in International Cooperation and Multilingual Communication from the University of Grenoble and joined the team in September 2022. She had previously completed an internship in ECPM’s international programmes and administration departments, as well as a civic service within the Prison Insider association.
Anna Levy, Political and Financial Mobilisation Officer
Anna Levy holds an LL.M in Human Rights from Oxford Brookes University, England, after acquiring a solid background in law at the University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne. She is also a volunteer with the French Coalition Against the Death Penalty (FCADP), pursuing the struggle for abolition and denouncing the deplorable conditions of detention in the United States.
International Programmes
Nicolas Perron, Programme Director
Nicolas Perron has worked for ECPM since 2008. As Director of Programs, he oversees all of ECPM’s activities in France and internationally, particularly in the MONA region, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. He regularly represents the association in the field and participates in dialogues with political actors and intergovernmental organizations.
Marie-Lina Pérez, Head of Africa-Asia Desk
Marie-Lina Pérez is a legal expert. She worked at the OHCHR in Geneva and at ECPM before moving to Kenya where she developed a programme on children’s rights and then joined the Alliance française de Nairobi. In 2016, Marie-Lina joined the ECPM team for the 6th World Congress against the Death Penalty in Oslo. As Head of Africa-Asia Desk, Marie-Lina works with local partners on strategies, capacity building as well as national and international advocacy development. She has also coordinated the editing of several ECPM publications.
Julia Bourbon Fernandez, Head of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Desk
Julia Bourbon-Fernandez trained as a lawyer before working for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Chad and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). She joined ECPM in 2017 and is currently Head of the MENA Desk. She works with local actors on strategies, advocacy at the national, regional and international level, capacity building and awareness raising. She coordinated several ECPM publications.
Anna Dubarle, International Programmes Assistant
After obtaining a Master’s degree in International Relations and Peace Studies, Anna Dubarle completed an internship in the ECPM communications department in 2018, during the organisation of the Regional Congress in Abidjan. She went on to work in the French office of The ONE Campaign as a project assistant where she contributed to the coordination of advocacy activities and campaigns for the replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Moulaye Ascofaré, International Programmes and Administration assistant
Moulaye is an intern in the international programs and administrative departments of ECPM, as part of a Master’s degree in Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies at the Paris Dauphine University. He is also an international solidarity graduate and owns a bachelor’s degree in international relations. Before joining ECPM, Moulaye committed to a civic service in a refugee center run by the Aurore association.
Teaching and awareness-raising
Laure Boukabza, Head of Teaching Programme
Specialised in mediation and education, Laure Boukabza has been putting her skills and activism to work in the field of human rights education and awareness-raising for over twelve years. Conscious of the added value of innovative and entertaining solutions, she pays great attention to the methods used to change mentalities. Today, she is responsible for ECPM’s teaching programme, coordinating the association’s educational activities in France and the activities of the Teaching Abolition International Network.
Léa Créton, Civic Service Programme, Education department
As Teaching and Awareness-Raising Project Officer, Léa Créton organises educational activities in France, aimed at raising awareness on the abolition of the death penalty among young people – and the not-so-young. She also coordinates the association’s activist activities.
Communication
Bertin Leblanc, Director of Communications
Bertin Leblanc was a journalist for more than 25 years at Télé-Québec, Radio-Canada, France 24 and TV5 Monde from Montreal to Brussels via Paris and Washington, before joining the Quebec diplomatic service as Cultural Affairs Advisor at the Quebec General Delegation in Paris. He then headed Amnesty International’s communications department for four years, before becoming spokesperson for the Secretary General of La Francophonie, and then editor-in-chief at Reporters Without Borders (RSF). He now devotes his time to communication and writing.
Émilie Fournier, Communication Officer
Emilie Fournier completed her Master’s degree in Intercultural Communication and Translation at ISIT (Paris), where she was president of the Solidar’ISIT association, while working as a trainee at ECPM, before becoming a contractual employee. She is very comfortable in multicultural environments and joined ECPM in June 2021 to combine her interests in international action and the defence of human rights.
4th Regional Congress on the Death Penalty in the Middle East
Sarah Hajjar, Regional Congress Coordinator
Sarah Hajjar has been active in the Human Rights field for over ten years and carried numerous campaigns and events for non-governmental organizations including ECPM and Amnesty International France. After working on the 6th and the 8th World Congresses against the Death Penalty, Sarah Hajjar was appointed Coordinator of the 4th Regional Congress on the Death Penalty which will be held in Jordan. Founder of the Lebanese Film Festival of France, a film festival dedicated to Lebanon, her country of origin, Sarah is committed to continuously creating bridges between Arts and Human Rights with the aim of raising awarness on fundamental issues.
Wassim Ouameur, Assistant to coordinator
Wassim has a degree from Sciences Po Aix, where he focused on studying the relationship between religion, politics, and social dynamics. He is particularly interested in the evolving situations in Muslim-majority countries. With his background in consulting, diplomacy, and humanitarian work, he joined the organizing team of the 4th Regional Congress on the Death Penalty in the Middle East.
Board of Directors
Aminata Niakate, President
Aminata has been a lawyer at the Paris Bar since 2010 and is committed to equality and human rights issues. She chairs the Parity-Equality Commission of the National Union of Liberal Professions. She is highly involved in her profession, chairing the Equality Commission of the National Bar Council between 2018 and 2020. Since November 2020, she has been President of ECPM, where she has been active since 2009.
Véronique Mary, Treasurer
From the moment she became politically aware, Véronique Mary was deeply convinced of the need to abolish the death penalty. It was after signing the ECPM petition in Télérama in 2000 that she decided to become more active and joined the association. She is a member of the Board of Directors, and was Treasurer from 2003 to 2019, a position she has held again since 2021. As a pharmacist, she conducted research for 30 years in neuropharmacology, and now focuses on pharmacovigilance.
Emmanuel Maistre, Director
A journalist by profession, at the age of 16 Emmanuel Maistre joined a group within the association Action des chrétiens pour l’abolition de la torture et de la peine de mort (ACAT). Later, combining his activism with his profession, he joined ECPM as editorial manager and then coordinator of the World Congress against the Death Penalty in Paris in 2007. For several years, he was also Secretary General of the association. He has two children and is currently editorial manager at Secours Catholique.
Marie Doucet-Lechantre, Director
Marie Doucet-Lechantre has been a human rights activist since her teenage years, and is a specialised teacher and trainer in the French national education system. She joined the fight for universal abolition of the death penalty with ECPM ten years ago, and became a member of its Board of Directors in 2020. She has four children and is a member of the Board of the Centre Contre les Manipulations Mentales.
Laurent Duarte, Director
Laurent Duarte is an activist and the Executive Secretary of the Turn the Page movement, which brings together more than 250 organisations in Africa and Europe to promote democracy and human rights. Formerly coordinator of the International Human Rights Film Festival, he has been a director of ECPM since 2020.
Emmanuel Oudar, Director
Emmanuel Oudar is director of an events and communications SME in the Paris region. He is one of the long-serving pillars of the association, demonstrating an unwavering commitment for over 21 years. He has been contributing his expertise to the organisation since the beginning of the ECPM adventure and has been a member of the Board since 2004.
Richard Sédillot, Director
Richard Sédillot graduated from the Institute of Comparative Law at the University of Paris II and frequently consults and litigates abroad. He has been involved in major political, criminal and family law cases. He has represented clients and provided legal assistance in numerous foreign courts, as well as the United Nations Dispute Tribunal, the European Court of Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Committee, the African Commission on Human Rights and various disciplinary bodies.
Me Edmond Fréty, Director
Edmond Fréty is a lawyer practising in Paris, with a focus on criminal law, intellectual property law and new technologies, information technology and communication law. He provides legal advice and representation to his clients.
François Croquette, Director
As a committed diplomat, François Croquette has worked in the DRC, Russia, Canada and London. He was also diplomatic advisor to the President of the French Senate, chief of staff to the Minister Delegate for Development and Ambassador for Human Rights, from January 2017 to November 2020. Since then, he has been Director for Ecological Transition and Climate at the City of Paris. Development, the defense of human rights and the environment are the common thread running through a career that has brought him into contact with the reality of the death penalty around the world, and has made its universal abolition a personal battle.