Brightman Gebremichael, Dr.

Director, Socio-Economic Rights Department

Dr. Brightman Gebremichael is the Director of Socio-Economic Rights Department at the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission. Dr. Brightman is a lawyer by training; with Doctor of Laws (LLD) from the University of Pretoria and Bachelor of Laws (LLB), and Master of Laws (LLM) in Environmental and Natural Resource Law from Bahir Dar University. In his doctoral dissertation, Dr. Brightman examined socio-economic rights, particularly right to property (including land rights). Dr. Brightman has extensive teaching, research, and leadership experience. He has taught several courses on graduate programs, including Advanced Legal Research Methodology, Land Law, Traditional Land Tenure Rules and Institutions, Property Law and Institutions, Environmental and Land Use Law, Compulsory Acquisition, and Agricultural Investment Law at Bahir Dar University as a full-time academic staff and other Universities in Ethiopia on part-time basis. He also taught several law courses at Wollo University. Dr. Brightman has conducted extensive research in the areas of civil society organizations and human rights; on issues around access to land; livelihood, poverty and land rights, federalism and land rights, constitutional land rights, state of emergency and human rights, and judicial enforcement of land rights. He published his research with international publishers and on international journals including on Journal of African Law. He has further served as a Dean of the School of Law at Wollo University; and as a Chair of Law Track at the Institute of Land Administration at Bahir Dar University since 2019. Dr. Brightman is multilingual with fluency in Amharic, English and Woliatatuwa.