Short Bio
Dr. Diana Kisakye is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Cluster of Excellence “Transforming Human Rights.” Her research focuses on comparative judicial politics and the institutionalisation of human rights in Africa’s international courts. Drawing on her work on judicial diplomacy and regional integration, her project, “Transnational Judicial Protection of Human Rights in East Africa,” examines how judges, lawyers, and activists use international courts to confront cross-border repression and reshape the meaning and practice of human rights in African regional organisations. Diana’s work speaks to scholars and practitioners interested in international courts, human rights under autocratisation, and the politics of law and courts within African regional integration agendas.
Diana’s project analyses how cross-border repression in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya transforms human rights norms, institutions, and practices. Focusing on the East African Court of Justice and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the project investigates how civil society actors mobilise regional courts to respond to escalating cross-border threats, including enforced disappearances, abductions, and harassment of dissidents across borders. The project explores the relationship between transnational repression, civic activism, and the role of courts, and asks how these dynamics shape rights expectations, resistance strategies, and new forms of legal and civic solidarity.
- Diana Kisakye. 2025. Judicial Diplomacy in African REC Courts: Navigating the Strategic Space in the East African Court of Justice (Nomos, available open access)
- Diana Kisakye & Alexander Stroh. 2024. “Informality and Relations in International Judicial Appointments: Evidence from Sub-regional Courts in Africa,” The African Review,https://doi.org/10.1163/1821889x-bja10139
- Diana Kisakye. 2023. “‘Hanging out’ with judicial and legal elites: Reflections on researching ‘up’,” University of Bayreuth African Studies Working Papers, BIGSASworks! 36 (https://epub.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/7387/5/Kisakye_BIGSASworks_40_final.pdf).