SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS HENRIETTA JOY ABENA NYARKO MENSA-BONSU OF GHANA HIS DEPUTY SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR LIBERIA

Biographical Note

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Henrietta Joy Abena Nyarko Mensa-Bonsu of Ghana as his Deputy Special Representative (Rule of Law) for Liberia.

Ms. Mensa-Bonsu is a Professor of the Faculty of Law, University of Ghana, and she is currently the Acting Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Ghana.

Prior to this appointment, Ms. Mensa-Bonsu has also undertaken a number of national assignments for Ghana and international assignments for the Organization of African Unity (OAU), African Union and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).  She was Ghana’s representative on the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on the Drafting of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the African Child in 1991, and the OAU’s Committee of Experts on the Lockerbie Case.  She was also a member of the Advisory Panel of the International Bar Association for the drafting of a Code of Professional Conduct for Defence Counsel appearing before the International Criminal Court.

Ms. Mensa-Bonsu served on the National Reconciliation Commission of Ghana and currently serves on the Police Council of Ghana and is thus involved in police reforms in Ghana.  She has also served on the African Union’s Committee of Eminent African Jurists on the Hissene Habre Case (2006) and is currently the Vice-Chairperson of the ECOWAS Working Group on the harmonisation of commercial laws of non-OHADA [Organization for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa] States, and an International Technical Adviser to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia as a nominee of ECOWAS.

Ms. Mensa-Bonsu has published widely on criminal law, juvenile justice and children’s rights.  She graduated in 1980 with first class honours in law from the University of Ghana and was called to the bar in 1982. She won a McDougal Fellowship to Yale Law School where she obtained an LLM.  She is also a Fulbright Fellow, and a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, where she is currently its Honorary Secretary.

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